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ADDRESSES 



DELIVEEED IN NEW-YOEK 



BY REV. ¥M. ARTHUR, A. M 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR. 



ibbress of |leb. Br. gibams,. 

AT THE BKOADWAY TABERNACLE. 



TO GET, TO KEEP, TO GIVE." ^J J 



EDITED BY W." P. STRICKLAND, D. D, 



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PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PHILLIPS, 

2 00 MULBEEEY-STEEET. 
1856. 



W' 'C:x^ X 



[rilB U»EAEY 
i<NP CONGESiftj 

IwASHlWOTWiJ 






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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by 

CARLTON & PHILLIPS, 

in the Clerk's OflQce of the District Court of the Southern 
District of New-York. 



EEY. WM. ARTHUE, A. M. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Mil. Arthur was born in the County of Antrim, 
Ireland, in the year 1819. At an early age he 
was converted to God, and joined the Methodist 
Society in the town of Westport, situated on the 
shores of Clew Bay, which, if not one of the 
most beautiful, is at least one of the most magnifi- 
cent bays in the world. He received his hterary 
training in a classical school in Mayo, and at the 
early age of eighteen was sent to the Wesleyan 
Theological Institute at London. After finishing 
his theological course, he was sent out by the 
British Conference as a missionary to the Mysore 
country, in India. On the voyage he mastered 
the grammar of the Canarese language, the dia- 



4 SKETCH OF REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR. 

lect of the people to whom he was going to preach ; 
and was enabled, at the expiration of three months 
after he reached the station, to preach to the na- 
tives in their own tongue half an hour at a time 
without a book. 

While engaged in his missionary labors, so in- 
tense was his application that his eye-sight failed 
him, and for four entire years he was unable to 
read a single volume, and during three more 
yeai^ of his sightless existence he was only able 
to read occasionally, and then only that which 
was strictly necessary. These were to him years 
of trial, in which patience was called to the exer- 
cise of her perfect work. 

After his return to England he published his 
first work, entitled '' Mission to Mysore,''^ an 
octavo volume of upward of five hundred pages ; 
a work of thrilling interest, and an admirable 
conti'ibution to the cause of Christian missions. 
Subsequently, as his sight was restored, he was 
stationed from time to time on different London 
circuits, and afterward at Paris and Boulogne, 
in France. During his appointment in Paris the 
Revolution of 1848 began, and he remained at his 
post, like a faithful sentinel, all through that ex- 



SKETCH OF REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR. 5 

citing and dangerous period. One Sabbath dur- 
ing the insurrection of June he preached, amid 
the incessant roar of cannon and musketry, to a 
congregation of twenty people, fifteen of whom 
were of the gentler sex, some of whose husbands 
were at that moment fighting. 

After his t^rm of service expired in Paris he 
returned to England, and in the course of a year 
or two was appointed one of the general secre- 
taries of the Mission House in London. Prior, 
however, to his appointment to this department 
of the work he was afflicted with laryngitis, 
which disabled him fi'om preaching, and he went 
into the country to recruit his health. In one 
of his journeys he stopped at the house of a 
son of Mr. Budget, and was there when his father 
died. As he had before him a prospect of a long, 
involuntary leisure, he determined to improve it, 
and had formed in his mind the plan of a work 
on Pantheism, but was diverted from his inten- 
tion by the suggestion which forced itself upon 
him from the numerous remarks he heard in re- 
lation to the life of Mr. Budget. It is, perhaps, 
in a more emphatic sense, true, that the good 
men do lives after them as well as the evil. It 



6 SKETCH OF REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR. 

was so in this case ; and the early toils, troubles, 
rise, progress, and benefactions of tbat remark- 
able man were tbe theme of general conversa- 
tion. 

It at once occurred to Mr. Arthur to write a 
commercial biography of the man who had passed 
away in the midst of his usefulness ; and he aban- 
doned the work he had contemplated for the pur- 
pose of engaging in one less abstract, but by far 
more important and useful. That work was 
written; and who has not read or heard of 
" The Successful Merchant,^'' either in Europe or 
America? Long may it live! diffusing intelli- 
gence and inspiring that " fervency of spirit and 
diligence in business " for which the subject of 
that book was so remarkable. 

This last spring Mr. Arthur published a work 
entitled, " The Observance of the Sabbath,''^ ad- 
dressed to Lord Stanley, and containing animad- 
versions on his speech. This was extensively 
circulated, and has already passed through nine 
editions. Through the influence of friends, it 
was sent to every member of Parliament and 
to all the ministers of the kingdom in Scot- 
land. 



SKETCH OF REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR. 7 

An article of his appeared in the *' London 
Quarterly Review," on the Crystal Palace, which 
attracted great attention, and was received with 
universal favor by the literary world. Being 
anonymous, it was generally credited to Mr. Ras- 
kin, the learned author of a work on Architecture 
and other subjects. From the beginning Mr. 
Arthur has been identified with the London 
Young Men's Christian Association as one of its 
presidents, and, until his health failed, has been 
one of the regular lecturers. 

At this time a movement orig-inated among 
the Methodists of Ireland in regard to the desti- 
tution of that country, produced by emigration 
and other causes, and the sad consequences result- 
ing from the dominant power of Romanism, 
which crushes the life out of that unhappy coun- 
try; and it was resolved that something should 
be done by way of raising funds for the purpose 
of enabling the conference to establish missions 
and schools, and to send out Bible readers through- 
out the length and breadth of the land. Atten- 
tion was directed to this country ; and it was 
thought that, as America had received the first 
Methodist preachers from Ireland, and now had 



8 SKETCH OF REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR. 

one hundred more Irish preachers in its connec- 
tion than were to be found in Ireland with a 
larger Irish Methodist population, that the 
Church in the United States would be wiUing 
to contribute cheerfully and liberally to so good 
an object. But it was thought first that they 
should make an effort to help themselves, and 
accordingly a meeting was called at Belfast. 
It was denominated a "Breakfast-meeting." 
Friends from all parts of the country were in- 
vited ; and so good was the cheer, and so enthusi- 
astic and joyous the hearts, that the " breakfast " 
lasted until four o'clock in the afternoon. The 
results of that meeting were glorious, and betoken 
great good for Ireland. $45,000 were raised, 
and subsequently the amount was increased to 
$Y5,000. 

This breakfast was given in the Music Hall, in 
honor of Mr. Arthur, the distinguished lecturer 
and author, whose appearance in the former 
capacity on the previous evening elicited such 
unparalleled applause and appreciation. The 
breakfast, which was furnished with much taste 
and elegance by Mr. Thompson, of Donegal 
Place, was served upon three large tables, ex- 



SKETCH OF REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR. 9 

tending the whole length of the room, each table 
accommodating about fifty persons, and the ar- 
rangements were acceptably and punctually car- 
ried out by the stewards. The Rev. Dr. Cooke, 
who occupied the chair, said grace, and the Rev. 
Wm. Reilly returned thanks, Besides ladies, of 
whom there were a considerable number present, 
there were the following clergymen and gentle- 
men : Rev. Dr. Cooke, Rev. Dr. Edgar, Rev. Dr. 
Morgan, Rev. Wm. Arthur, Rev. R. G. Jones, 
Rev. D. M'Afee, Rev. R. Houston, Rev. J. W. 
M'Kay, Rev. R. Knox, Rev. W. Johnson, Rev. 
James Young, Rev. George Bellis, Rev. George 
Shaw, Rev. John M'Vicker, Rev. Robert Gather, 
Coleraine; Rev. J. Hughes, Donaghadee; Rev. 
C. M'Kay, Rev. John Saul, Rev. G. Chambers, 
Rev. W. Brown, Rev. W. Reilly, Rev. W. Swan- 
ton, Rev. John Greer, Rev. Wm. Hoey ; W. D. 
Henderson, Esq. ; Wm. Mullen, Esq. ; Edward 
Tucker, Esq. ; John Arnold, Esq. ; Robert Lind- 
say, Esq. ; WiUiam Stellfox, Esq. ; J. S. Budgett, 
Esq., Bristol ; John Lindsay, Esq. ; David Car- 
michael, Esq., Millisle ; Wm. L. Finlay, Esq.; 
Robert Waring, Esq. ; John G. M'Gee, Esq. ; 
James Carlisle, Esq.; William M'Comb, Esq.; 



10 SKETCH OF REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR. 

Mr. Alderman M'Cartliy, of Londonderry, and 
others. 

After several addresses, given by Rev. Drs. 
Cooke and Edgar, Mr. Arthur rose and said : 
" I feel, sir, that I scarcely know to what particu- 
lar point to direct my observations this morning. 
Permit me to say that I feel it personally to be 
a very great honor to be so near you, for among 
my earliest recollections your name is familiar 
among those I have thought great and eminent ; 
and I feel it to be a great honor to be the guest 
of Dr. Edgar, who has done so much for our 
country, and, by the blessing of God, will do as 
much more. (Hear.) I have been often asked 
in other countries — for it has been my lot to be 
driven much about — What is the great source of 
all the evils of Ireland ? and my invariable reply 
is, Ireland has three curses, ' priests,' ' pride,' and 
'whisky.' Now, I believe that Dr. Edgar has 
done as much as any other man to help to de- 
liver our country from those three curses. (Hear, 
and applause.) What share, sir, you have had 
in it I will not attempt to say. Our present 
point, sir, is to endeavor to promote a real, sys- 
tematic, and earnest spirit of Christian benevo- 



SKETCH OF REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR. 11 

leuce ; and I do think that it is for Ireland — 
apart from all other considerations — and for our 
national character, a matter of very considerable 
honor that the duty of giving the world a tone 
in this matter has been taken up by men con- 
nected with Ireland, and that you are about, by 
the blessing of God, to put the Churches of Christ 
more and more into a habit of acting in this mat- 
ter on system and on principle. (Hear, hear.) 
There is precisely one thing that, as a nation, we 
want to get a character for in the world. We 
have a very high character for many things. 
They give us credit for all sorts of talent, and 
wit, and generosity, and hospitality, and a great 
many other things; but our character as a 
nation is not somehow remarkably high for 
common-sense. (Laughter.) I believe that this 
movement is precisely one of many movements 
in the hands of Providence for impressing on the 
country and on the national character a more 
marked characteristic of sense, straightforwardness, 
business-like views of things and feelings, and 
doing works of love at great sacrifice. I have 
no doubt that we could not do for mankind a 
greater service than to promote a spirit of practi- 



12 SKETCH OF REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR. 

cal benevolence — (hear, hear) — and we could not 
do it better than by the operations that are now, 
under the hand of God, being conducted by the 
friends who have set this work in motion. I 
know several men who early in life were led, by 
the blessing of God, to determine on this course 
of action. The night before I left London, I met 
one that I knew for many years had acted upon 
the principle of giving to the Lord according to 
his means and income. He often told me that 
he got no education except what he acquired at 
the Sunday school, and he was married at nine- 
teen,; but he and his wife feared God, and, 
though he was a working man, earning his bread 
by the sweat of his brow, he solemnly resolved 
that he would devote to the Lord a tenth of his 
income. I saw him on the evening I allude to 
sitting among the most respectable merchants 
and manufacturers of his own neighborhood, and 
T said to him, ' Did you ever know a case in which 
a man, beginning life on the principle that you 
did, and sustaining that principle, broke down or 
failed V He thought and said, ' I have never 
known a case.' He said, ' There are my three 
boys — they are all that a father's heart could 



SKETCH OF REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR. 13 

wish — they have begun Hfe on the same princi- 
ple, (hear, hear;) and there is one, now my son- 
in-law, that I have known since he was a child, 
and he has just been married. He has not been 
content with applying the principle to his regular 
income ; but what I gave him to begin life with, 
he has taken one-tenth of it to make a fund for 
benevolence to begin with, and he has opportuni- 
ties of doing a great many things that he could 
not otherwise have.' (Hear, hear.) There was 
something transmitted to his sons which made 
them better Christians and better men of busi- 
ness. ' I well remember,' says he, ' one effect of 
this system on me ; that, instead of calculating 
my gross income as the basis of my expenditure, 
I calculate my income less so much for expendi- 
ture. A certain proportion of it is cut off for the 
Lord.' Another case occurred to me a day or 
two before I left London. A fi-iend who was for 
some yeai-s urging me to write on this subject, 
who began his religious life on the principle of 
giving one-tenth to the Lord — I have seen him 
rise from a comparatively modest income to a 
very large one, and he is now an immense con- 
tributor to several funds — said to me, ' I feel 



14 ' SKETCH OF REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR. 

I must find some regular mode of giving away 
beyond what I have been already adopting, and 
I want the names of all the connectional funds, 
that I may become a regular subscriber.' These 
connectional funds are what you call, in Scottish 
phrase, schemes of the Church. I gave him the 
names of five schemes, and he gave ten guineas 
to three of them, and to the other two five guineas 
each. ; 'I believe,' says he, 'there are in all our 
Churches a great number of men who, if they 
were to look at the matter in the light of con- 
science before God, would be in a condition to 
subscribe ten guineas a year to all the schemes 
of the'^difi'erent Churches they are connected 
with ; but we find a positive delight in it ; for 
when a man has once made up his mind how 
much to give, it is then a settled matter that he 
can afibrd it.' Within the last twelve months I 
have met with another case. As secretary of a 
missionary society, I was surprised to see an an- 
nounce roent of £1,000 from a gentleman whose 
name I did not know. It is likely that before a 
man arrives at that point of liberality he will be 
heard of. At the same time, however, I saw the 
same name giving £1,000 pounds to the British 



SKETCH OF REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR. 15 

and Foreign Bible Society. A very few weeks 
afterward it was my tot to visit the gentleman's 
house ; and he told me, in course of conversa- 
tion, that when he was about to be married, a 
mutual fi'iend of theirs told the young woman 
that she really feared they would not be happy 
together, for her disposition was liberal and his 
was very careful indeed, and that he would 
hardly give her money to give away and do 
good. She felt this so much that she mentioned 
it to him ; and he said, ' It is certainly my dis- 
position ; but I see that it is my duty to glorify 
God, and the best plan would be now to make 
up our minds as to the proportion to give away 
to the Lord.' They made up their minds ; they 
resolved on it ; and after they were married they 
gave away as they proposed, to a great extent 
secretly, for their fathers would have thought 
they were extravagant if they gave more than a 
guinea. ' I also,' said he, ' keep a drawer, called 
the Lord's drawer, and when I find how much I 
have made in the year, the proportion goes into 
the drawer.' They had nine children, and he 
was a farmer, and he said he saved several thou- 
sands. In the neighborhood there Hved a lady, 



16 SKETCH OF REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR. 

the last of her family, under whom he held his 
farm ; she was in no way connected with him, 
but she gave him hints before her death that he 
would find himself better by her will. At last 
she died ; and to his surprise he found that 
he liad been left the entire property, landed 
and personal, with only one condition, that he 
should drop his name and take hers ; and that 
was the reason that I did not know his name 
when it came with the £1,000. (Applause.) 
These are cases that show how the marked bless- 
ing of Grod attended men in the steady prose- 
cution of doing good ; and I do trust that the 
movement begun in Belfast and sustained with 
so much energy will not be disappointed. There 
is an old cry of some, that we ought to give from 
principle and not from feeling ; and this is made 
a most scandalous use of by certain classes of 
men. You will find a rich man, who is worth 
.£100,000, sitting down in his own house, with 
all his feelings as frigid as need be ; he makes 
up his mind for such a charity or for such a mis- 
sion I will give £5 — that is what I ought to give. 
He goes and hears the cause pleaded before him ; 
he sees then a great deal more in it than he }\ad 



SKETCH OF REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR. l7 

anv idea of. His heart beo-ins to g-et warm, and 
impulse gets in by some passage into his heart, 
' give a twenty pound note.' ' Xo, no. I must 
give from principle and not from feeling ; my 
principle was to give £o.' (Hear, hear.) ! 
what is the principle in the case ? Your feehngs 
all run on one side — all take the direction of self- 
forgetfulness, of self-denial, of liberality, of love to 
God, of sacrifice to man, of benevolence, of gene- 
rosity, of heavenly-mindedness, of unearthliness. 
Your feehngs run away in that direction, so that 
you are positively obliged to call in principle to 
keep your feelings down to something like a 
moderate level. (Applause.) Call in principle 
and ask what has it to say that will calm these 
extreme feelings of yours ? I had said, ' Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
and thy neighbor as thyself.' You ask, Shall you 
do nothing more ? Yes ; ' Ye know the grace 
of the Lord Jesus Christ, how that though he 
was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that 
ye through his poverty might be rich.' I tell 
you, my magnanimous friend, that for one indi- 
vidual, whose feelings are in advance of his princi- 
ples, and who has to go to principle to keep his 



18 SKETCH OF REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR. 

heart down to the level, there are thousands of 
creatures whose feelings are far behind their 
principles, and who can hardly get their feelings 
to look their principles in the face. If we could 
get people to give from principle and not from 
feeling, it would suit the matter at once. It is 
feeling that is against us, and feeling is not to be 
taken for granted to be all on the right side. 
Let us treat our feelings as on this firm basis — 
they are wrong ; they tend to be wrong and not 
to be right ; and are we to find fault with efibrts 
to bring the feelings of people up to their princi- 
ples ? We must make these eflPorts. There is a 
great deal of blame expended in different quar- 
ters on men appealing and appealing, and trying 
to make them generous. I hope, sir, you appeal 
to make people honest ; I beheve you will not be 
found fault with for it. Are we to take it for 
granted that in a world so selfish as this world, 
we are not to have men who will make it their 
business to deal with the feelings of people thai 
are all wrong, and to bring them to have princi- 
ples that are all right ? I consider that the man 
who, by any teaching of Christian doctrines, 
succeeds for one moment in rousing in the 



SKETCH OF REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR. l\) 

breast of any human being one feeling of gush- 
ing generosity, is a benefactor of the human 
race." (Applause.) 

The Irish Conference appointed the Rev. Mr. 
Scott a delegate to the Methodist Episcopal 
Chm-ch in the United States for the purpose of 
presenting the claims of Ireland to the sympathies 
and benevolence of the Church here, and, in con- 
nection with this, requested the British Confer- 
ence to allow Mr. Arthur to accompany him and 
plead the cause of his oppressed and down-trod- 
den countrymen. Their request was granted; 
and on the sixth day of last September the depu- 
tation landed on om* shores. 

No sooner was the object of their visit made 
known to the authorities of the Church than they 
received a most cordial welcome. They received 
letters from all the bishops, expressing their 
warmest sympathy in the movement, backed up 
by what material aid they were themselves able 
to give — a custom which our bishops observe in 
every good work — and commending them to the 
enlarged liberality of the Church. The confer- 
ences also vied with each other in passing reso- 
lutions approving of the movement, and pledging 



20 SKETCH OF REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR. 

themselves and their people to an active and 
hearty cooperation. 

In the mean time Rev. Messrs. Arthur and 
Scott have visited the West and attended several 
of the conferences, presenting, wherever they 
went, the claims of their unhappy country. Their 
labors thus far, however, have been confined 
mostly to New-York, where they have met with 
success, and doubtless before their mission ex- 
pires they will realize their most sanguine antici- 
pations. 

At a meeting of clergymen, of different denomi- 
nations, amounting to one hundred, held at the pri- 
vate residence of a gentleman of this city, for the 
purpose of giving a suitable reception to the dele- 
gates, which was one of great cordiahty and en- 
thusiasm, and which was entertained by an elo- 
quent conversational address by Mr. Arthur, it 
was resolved to invite him to deliver an address, 
in the Broadway Tabernacle, on systematic Chris- 
tian benevolence. A committee was accordingly 
appointed for this purpose, consisting of Rev. Drs. 
Tyng, of the Protestant Episcopal ; Adams and 
Phillips, of the Presbyterian ; Thompson, of the 
Congregational ; Knox, of the Dutch Reformed ; 



SKETCH OF REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR. 2] 

Somers, of the Baptist; and Holdich, of the 
Methodist Churches. 

This invitation Mr. Arthur accepted ; and the 
time fixed for the address was Wednesday even- 
ing, the 12th of December, at the Broadway 
Tabernacle. 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

At an early hour the spacious building was 
filled with a congregation composed of different 
denominations, drawn together to listen to the 
eloquent lecturer who, in Belfast, Dublin, and 
London, before dignitaries of Church and state, 
and immense audiences, had discoursed so im- 
pressively on the duty of Christians to conse- 
crate themselves and their property to God. 

The Rev. Mr. Thompson opened the exercises 
by reading the hymn commencing — 

" Blest be the tie that binds 
Our hearts in Christian love.'' 

After the singing of the hymn the Rev. Mr. 
Cuyler, of the Dutch Reformed Church, led in a 
prayer which breathed a spirit of Christian 
unity. 

The Rev. Dr. Adams was then introduced to 
the large and attentive audience, and addressed 
it as follows : — 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 23 

" How strangely we go on, gathering up the 
threads and weaving the web of our earthly life. 
We have heard it said that the reading of a book 
brings us into direct intercourse with its author, 
be he absent or invisible. This summer I had 
the pleasure of reading that exceedingly clever 
book entitled 'The Christian Life,' by Mr. 
Bayne. Its able and graphic descriptions were 
deeply interesting. In referring to that remark- 
able man, Mr. Budget, he spoke in the most 
eloquent terms of his biographer, Mr. Arthur. 
Little did I then expect to look upon the face of 
that man, and form a personal acquaintance with 
him ; but that pleasure was granted me. I have 
here been introduced to him, have taken him by 
the hand, and held communion with his genial 
and benevolent spirit. The noble decision, en- 
larged enterprise, and commercial success of the 
merchant whose life Mr. Arthur has so graphic- 
ally and appropriately portrayed in the book en- 
titled ' The Successful Merchant,' is a contribu- 
tion to Christianity, and that feature of it particu- 
larly which relates to systematic Christian benef- 
icence, of a high and valuable character. In this 
connection I may remark that it is cheering to 



24 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

find among the English clergy one, at least, who 
has the manliness and Christian fortitude to stand 
up and wage an opposition to the principles and 
movements of Lord Stanley, who would introduce 
a 'French Sunday' into England with all its 
desecrations. 

"Mr. Arthur is here among us, making an 
effort in behalf of the cause of evangelical Prot- 
estantism in Ireland. The plan contemplates 
an aggressive movement upon the various forms 
of error and sin with which that nation is cursed ; 
and had he accomplished no more in his mission 
than to stimulate his own Church, and rouse it to 
greater exertions in behalf of the benevolent en- 
terprise in which he is engaged, it would have 
been worth his visit to our shores, and a sufficient 
compensation for all his labors for the benefit of 
his native land. 

" That one sermon, which he preached in the 
Mulberry- street Methodist Episcopal Church, and 
its results in raising the large sum of $10,000, 
will tell wonderfully in its influence as an exam- 
ple of Christian beneficence, not only upon the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, but upon all the 
other Churches in our land. It is not my pur- 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 25 

pose to advocate the particular measure had in 
view by the Methodists in relation to Ireland ; 
but, so far as I understand it, it commends itself 
to all Christians as noble and praiseworthy. 
Everything connected with the elevation and sal- 
vation of the Emerald Isle possesses an interest 
of a general character, and one in which all 
Christians should take pleasure in participat- 
ing; but it may be that the Methodist Church 
has greater resources and adaptation to the work 
of introducing a large, free, and benevolent hu- 
manity into Ireland than any other in the world, 
and I wish that Church God-speed in its benevo- 
lent mission. 

" It may be thought by some as strange that 
I, a minister of another denomination, should 
have been selected to introduce Mr. Arthur on 
the present occasion ; but so it is. And I here 
say, sincerely and without affectation, that I deem 
it an honor to have such a privilege. From my 
heart I respond to the sentiment of Robert Hall, 
that Wesley and Whitefield were the 'second 
reformers of England ' in an age that had Boling- 
broke for a philosopher. Pope for a minstrel, and 
Atterbury for a preacher. How different was 
2 



26 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

their style of preaching from that of the preach- 
ers of those times. The efforts of the pulpit were 
cold, philosophical, and elegant ; but those of 
Wesley and his coadjutors inspired the themes 
of the Gospel with life and power. I need not 
say that I have for those names unbounded es- 
teem. Why cannot we have the same respect 
for men when living as for those great names 
that have passed away? Why must we wait 
till we are dead before we drop sectarianism ? I 
repeat it, I love John Wesley for his Christian 
life and labors, for his pure spiritual hymns, 
which will be the songs of Zion for all time to 
come ; and, as a Christian, I have just as much 
right and interest in him as any Methodist. 
Southey was incompetent to write a biography 
of Wesley and a history of Methodism ; it was 
reserved for Isaac Taylor to grasp and enter into 
the spirit of the man, and portray the true genius 
and mission of Methodism. 

" There is not an evangelical denomination 'ja 
the world that has not felt, and does not now 
feel, to some extent, the influence of Wesley's 
zeal and spirit. But I must not dwell. It only 
remains for me to introduce to you the accom- 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 27 

plished author of the Hfe of Mr. Budget, the suc- 
cessful merchant, brother Arthur, (if I may call 
him brother,) who will address you." 

The address introductory of Dr. Adams was 
listened to with great interest. Its tone and 
spirit were worthy of the man and the occasion ; 
and at its close the Rev. Mr. Arthur arose and 
delivered the following 

ADDRESS. 

" I have been requested to deliver an address 
on what you call in this countr j systematic Chris- 
tian benefxence, but what, in our country, is de- 
nominated proportionate giving ; or, in other 
words, what I call the duty of giving away a 
stated proportion of our income, 

" Most people think it vastly more important 
to get than to give. When I first ventured to 
handle this subject it was not from any impres- 
sion entertained by me that I had light above 
others. Several gentlemen called on me to de- 
liver a lecture on Christian beneficence in Bel- 
fast, Ireland, which I complied with, and subse- 
quently repeated that lecture in Dublin and 



28 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

London. I have been requested to repeat that 
lecture this evening. 

" This subject has aheady been handled, and 
that with much force of logic and Scriptural 
demonstration, with much feeling and practical 
knowledge, in the book so well known under the 
title of "Gold and the Gospel ;" a book with this 
singular genealogy, that it is the offspring of five 
heads and one heart. The gentlemen to whom 
the pubUc are indebted for the origin of that 
volume, as also for its circulation on tenns un- 
precedented, though they must be satisfied that 
they have done much, yet, like all who have 
tasted the pleasure of doing good, are resolved 
on doing more. ISTot content with having set up 
a banner for benevolence, they are deteraiined to 
raise and train an army by which that banner 
shall be followed wherever it is unfurled. 
Against their volume just one thing can be 
said, — it is a volume, and a large one ; and that 
is no inconsiderable drawback in an age that is 
itself a newspaper. They now intend, by the 
lighter instrumentality of popular addresses, to 
press the subject home upon multitudes whom 
octavos never disturb. 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 29 

"For the practical handling of the subject 
which is expected from me, I know not that I 
can do better than attempt to explain the duty, 
state the grounds whereon it rests, and plead 
for practical attention to it. 

" When we speak of the duty of giving away 
a stated proportion of our income, we do not 
mean that all persons having equal incomes are 
hound to give away equal sums^ however their 
other circumstances may vary. Power to give 
away may be modified by three ci]*cumstances,— 
fe,mily, locality, and station. Of two persons, 
each receiving five hundred dollars a year, one 
has seven children, the other is a bachelor. It 
would be strange if the single man might justly 
spend upon himself as much as the other must 
spend on his family, or that he might innocently 
give away more than the other can contrive to 
get. Of two persons having the same family and 
the same income, one lives in a large city, where 
rent, taxes, and provisions are dear ; the other 
in an agricultural village, where these are all 
cheap. Is the latter to take the full advantage 
of his easier circumstances for his private purse 
and give none of it to benevolence ? Again, two 



30 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

persons have each five thousand dollars a year. 
One from small beginnings has reached that point 
by industry and saving. Without hereditary 
claims, without public expectations, and with in- 
valuable habits of economy, he is royally rich on 
his five thousand a year. Another has inherited 
the same income from a father who was in the 
habit of spending fifty thousand a year. A num- 
ber of servants, retainers, and tradespeople have 
what amounts to a vested interest in his revenue ; 
the public have expectations ; and, worst of all, 
his habits are formed on a costly model, so that 
he is not only perplexed, but really poor, with 
his five thousand a year. Each of these three 
branches of modification has innumerable ofi"- 
shoots, going to show, that to require all who 
have equal incomes to give away equal sums 
would be neither just nor generous. 

^^Nor do we mean that all persons are to give 
away the same proportion of their income^ how- 
ever its gross amount may vary. Two brothers 
live in the same town, and have the same family. 
Li this case station, locality, and family are equal. 
The elder is just able to provide his children with 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 31 

a small house, frugal fare, homely clothing, and 
a passable education. He is quite unable to lay 
up anything which would help to open their 
way in life when the critical period of settlement 
shall come. Yet, knowing to whom he and his 
owe their daily bread, he gratefully devotes a 
tenth of his income to the service of God. 

"His younger brother has been otherwise 
prospered. His children sleep in spacious rooms, 
and play among their own flower-beds; their 
clothing is rich, their board generous, and their 
education costly. For each of them he is able to 
lay up in store, and knows that, if they do not 
pass through life with comfort and respect, it will 
be their own fault. And is this man, for whom 
Providence has done so much more than for his 
brother, to content himself with rendering the 
same proportionate acknowledgment as he ? For 
the latter to give a tenth of all is an effort — an 
effort which he feels, and his children feel, in 
' their coats, their hosen, and their hats.' For 
the other to give a tenth would be no effort what- 
ever ; it would never affect his comforts, not even 
his luxuries, no, not the crumbs that fall from 
his table. It would affect nothing but his 



32 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

hoarded money. If we hold that his brother 
should give a tenth, and he should give no 
more, then we hold that the lesser mercies de- 
mand the more touching acknowledgment, and 
that God's superior bounties may sit more hghtly 
on our hearts. 

*' Take another case. You visit a friend when 
he is twenty-five years of age, spending little on 
his establishment, and giving away a tenth to 
Him who gives him all. You return to his 
house when he is fifty. Now he is spending on 
his establishment ten times as much as before. 
Why? Because the Lord /hath blessed the 
work of his hands, and his substance is increased 
in the land.' The same labor which, twenty- 
five years ago, yielded him a modest income, 
now brings a twentyfold return. While Provi- 
dence has thus multiplied the proportionate 
productiveness of his toil, is he to confine his 
acknowledgments to the same proportion which 
he rendered when his efi'orts were far less fruit- 
ful ? If he does, gratitude diminishes as boun- 
ties enlarge. We would, therefore, strongly 
contend that when Providence greatly increases 
the return of labor, or throws abundance into 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 33 

our lap without labor, we are bound to acknowl- 
edge such mercy — mercy which distinguishes us 
above the ordinary lot of men — by thank-offer- 
ings not adjusted to the scale of those whose 
blessing is less than ours, but aiming to keep 
pace with the peculiar bounty which, while 
some pine and others struggle, gives us ^ all 
things richly to enjoy.' One man's tenth is 
more than another man's third. I know one 
venerable man — one of the men whom my soul 
loveth — who, at the outset of life, adopted the 
vow of Jacob : ' Of all that Thou shalt give me, 
I will surely give the tenth to Thee ;' but so far 
from confining himself to this, I know that some 
years ago he was for that year giving away not 
a tenth, but four-tenths. How Providence has 
dealt with him you may judge from the simple 
fact, that on one day he might be seen in the 
morning giving away a thousand pounds to one 
religious society, and in the evening five hundred 
to another. 

" On the other hand, we do not mean that per- 
sons are hound to give away all their income, so 
as to admit of no increase of capital, or extension 
of property. There is a large class of promises 
2^ 



34 MEETING- AT THE TABERNACLE. 

which attach temporal advancement to humble 
and godly industry, as a reward from Providence. 
' By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches, 
honor, and life.' Prov. xxii, 4. 'Such as are 
blessed of Him shall inherit the earth.' Psalm 
xxxvii, 22. 'Blessed is the man that feareth the 
Lord, and delighteth greatly in his command- 
ments : wealth and riches shall be in his house.' 
Psalm cxii, 3. Liberality itself, the very virtue 
for which we are pleading, is encouraged by the 
prospect of abundance. ' Honor the Lord with 
thy substance, and with the first-fruits of all 
thine increase : so shall thy barns be filled with 
plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new 
wine.' Prov. iii, 9. One of the punishments 
threatened against improperly-gotten wealth is 
its decrease, while lawful labor is stimulated by 
the hope of plenty. ' Wealth gotten by vanity 
shall be diminished, but he that gathereth by 
labor shall increase.' 

" This passage not only offers to industry the 
prize of increase, but states the true relation of 
labor and capital. 'He that gathereth by labor 
shall increase.' Labor creates capital ; capital 
rewards labor. Where there is no labor, capital 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 35 

IS lumber; where there is no capital, labor is 
beating the air. The effect of well-directed labor 
is to increase capital; the effect of increasing 
capital is to lighten the burden and raise the pay 
of labor. These effects depend not on the will 
of men or masters, but are wrought deeper than 
either can permanently reach into the ground- 
work of human relations by the Builder of all. 
So far from that accumulation of capital which 
results from the blessing of Providence on lawful 
industry contravening the purposes of benevo- 
lence, it directly and most efficiently serves them. 
Two brothers enter this city, each with a capital 
of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The 
one seeks out fifty thousand poor families in the 
city and country, and gives away all his capital 
among them, five dollars to each. The other 
invests his two hundred and fifty thousand in a 
factory. Return in five years, and mark the 
effect of the two sums upon the people. Of the 
first two hundred and fifty thousand, the only 
trace you can find is here a decayed bonnet, 
there a worn-out cloak, and in some humble 
homes a very grateful recollection ; but no per- 
manent pubhc benefit, no sensible improvement 



36 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

in the condition of the laboring poor. As to the 
other two hundred and fifty thousand, it fed and 
clothed many families from the first day : to-day 
it is feeding and clothing many families, and it is 
promising to do so in perpetuity. At the same 
time, the profits which are known to have accrued 
to its owner are attracting other capital to a like 
investment, so as further to improve the pros- 
pects of all the laboring population of the 
neighborhood. 

" It is possible, and more than possible, that 
in this case the one who gave away his all did 
it from the noble motive of self-denial ; and most 
assuredly he will have his reward. It is also 
possible that the other acted from the commonest 
selfishness, and can look for no credit beyond 
that of worldly wisdom. But the fact that he 
who acted from a noble motive did no perma- 
nent good to the poor, while he who acted from 
a low one did much, forces us to inquire, Did 
not the one unconsciously violate, and the other 
unconsciously follow, a law of Providence ? Does 
not the one case indicate the existence of a law 
against the dispersion of property in indis- 
criminate gifts, and the other a law in favor of 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE, 3*7 

its employment to elicit and reward useful 
labor ? 

'' But here many sincere and admirable Chris- 
tians will tell me, ' You are arguing directly 
against the words of our Lord. He commands 
us, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon 
earth ;" and to do as you say is plainly to break 
this very clear command.' If that be so, all my 
reasoning on the point falls to the ground ; and 
he who permits riches to increase is no Christian, 
But is it so ? 

" We have already seen that a class of promises 
exists which must be nulHfied, if no servant of 
God is to permit his possessions to increase ; and 
such commands as, * Provide things honest in 
the sight of all men ;' ' Charge them that are 
rich . . , that they be ready to distribute, 
willing to communicate,' <fec., enforce duties 
which exist not if no man has a right to h'^ve 
possessions except only in such a degree as will 
enable him to continue alive. jSTo command 
ever contradicts another command ; and no com- 
mand is ever meant to supersede a whole class 
of promises. With these two principles in view, 
we take this command, ' Lay not up for your- 



38 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

selves treasures upon earth,' and place it beside 
another which is^ like unto it : ' Take no thought 
for to-morrow.' Am I to be told that I break 
this latter command if I take thought for duties 
and responsibilities which do not press to-day, 
but will to-morrow ? Without doing so, I cannot 
fulfill my duty to God, to my neighbor, or to 
myself. The highest obligations which are laid 
upon me require thought, and action too, for 
to-morrow. This runs through all the ways of 
Providence. Most of the duties for which He 
holds us responsible, call us to work for the 
morrow. It is for to-morrow the plower 
plows, for to-morrow the sower sows, for to- 
morrow the reaper reaps, for to-morrow the 
miller grinds, for to-morrow the weaver plies his 
loom, for to-morrow the builder frames his roof; 
and did we put a stop to all labor which is for 
to-rhorrow, we should at once reduce the activity 
of the human race to a few of the most menial 
occupations. The call to take no thought for 
to-morrow is certainly not a call to neglect duties 
and evade responsibilities; but a call to trust 
in Providence when the time only to trust has 
come. When T have done for to-morrow all 



MEETING- AT THE TABERNACLE. 39 

that is laid at my door, then let me not encroach 
upon the domain of Him who alone can rule the 
future and the contingent, by troubling myself 
with them. Let me simply do this day the 
work which is this day due ; and though long 
and impenetrable months may lie between me 
and its result, for that I must trust Him whom 
the sparrows trust ; saying cheerfully, ' The Lord 
will provide 1' 

" When in the one of these two glorious words 
of Christ the letter is so plainly to be interpreted 
by the spirit of all Scripture, it is not probable 
that in the other the letter is all we are to look 
to. But if you will appeal to the letter, then to 
the letter you shall go. That letter is, ' Lay not 
up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where 
moth and rust do corrupt.^ Now moth and rust 
do not corrupt property employed in active ser- 
vice, as commercial investment. They only cor- 
rupt hoards which are heaped up idle, not doing 
the purposes of Providence, not contributing to 
the welfare of men. Against such stores only 
does the letter of this precept bear, and against 
them let all denunciations peal ! 

" But though we do not beheve that the letter 



40 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

of our Lord's precept was ever meant to prevent 
his servants from accepting such increase of their 
goods as his bounty might give them, while they 
glorified him with their first-fruits, we deeply 
feel that in the spirit of that precept many weighty 
lessons lie. It seems to say, ^ Do not resolve to 
he rich!' To you, young man, it seems clearly 
to say, ' Do not make up your mind to die worth 
thirty thousand or a hundred thousand pounds.' 
Any such resolution is evil, and out of it woes 
will come. ' They that will he rich fall into 
temptation and a snare, and many foolish and 
hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction 
and perdition.' 1 Tim. vi, 9. It also says, — 

" Do not r}%ake haste to he rich ; even without 
formally resolving to win a high prize of wealth, 
do not follow after riches eagerly, or long to see 
yourself encircled with abundance. ' He that 
maketh haste to be rich shall not he innocent. 
. . . He that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye^ 
and considereth not that poverty shall come upon 
him.' Prov. xxviii, 20, 22. 

^''Do not adopt selfishness as a means to wealth. 
Our natural reason and the carnal mind prompt 
us to say, * If I am to be rich, all that I get I 



MEETING AT TEE TABERNACLE. 41 

must keep. Holding, nursing, guarding all that 
comes into my hands, it must grow to be of some 
account at last.' Such a mode of calculating is 
confronted by the spirit of faith and love which 
breathes all through the Bible. Viewing a 
power infinitely above the petty advantages of 
hoarding, it cries, ' There is that scattereth, and 
yet increaseth ; there is that withholdeth more 
than is meet, and it tendeth to poverty.' Take 
this proverb to your heart. There is joy and 
gloiy in it. It links your hope of personal com- 
fort with the Father of all benevolence. Say, ' If 
there is wealth to be gotten by greed, by hold- 
ing, by shutting my heart against gushes of 
generosity, and my hand against self-forgetting 
acts of goodness, then such wealth be to others, 
and its fruits be far from my children !' Say, 
* Wealth so gotten is no wealth : it is but a metal 
coffin for the affections. If wealth come to me, 
let it come from the Great Giver, at whose bid- 
ding I cast my bread upon the waters !' ' The 
blessing of the Lord it maketh rich, and he add- 
eth no sorrow with it.' 

"i)o not trust in riches. In the forms of popu- 
lar speech we may often trace real and import- 



42 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

ant distinctions. JSTothing is more common than 
to hear persons speak of a man idolizing various 
objects of earthly affection. Yet of many such 
objects we never hear it said they are made gods« 
Nothing is more common than to hear of a man 
making an idol of his child ; but people do not 
say he makes a god of his child. With regard 
to money, however, it is quite otherwise; they 
readily say, 'He makes a god of his money.' 
Yes ; for he not only loves the money, and doats 
on it, but he puts his trust in it. All the faith he 
has centers in it. It is his Providence ; on it his 
future depends ; it is his hope for his children — 
his hope of name and honor after death. Assail 
it, and you assail his rock, his strong tower, his 
reward. Take it away, and in his own feelings 
you have bereft him of all his dependence. 
Surely this is idolatry ! * Charge them that are 
rich in this world that they be not high-minded, 
nor trust in uncertain riches^ but in the living 
God, who giveth us all things richly to enjoy ; 
that they do good, that they be rich in good 
works, ready to distribute, willing to communi- 
cate ; laying up in store for themselves a good 
foundation against the time to come, that they 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 43 

may lay hold on eternal life.' 1 Timothy vi, 
17-19. 

" These seem to me to be some of the chief 
lessons taught us in this precept of our blessed 
Master ; and he who cordially follows these, 
glorifying God, and benefiting man with liberal 
first-fruits of all his increase, on him, for my part, 
riches and plenty may freely come. In his prog- 
ress all good men will rejoice, and the poor will 
bless his riches. If, like Abraham, he has an old 
servant, he will say with smiles, ' The Lord hath 
blessed my master greatly ; and he is become 
great : and he hath given him flocks, and herds, 
and silver, and gold, and menservants, and maid- 
servants, and camels, and asses.' Gen. xxiv, 35. 

"PFb do not mean that Christians are bound 
to draiv a line, and say, ''Beyond this limit, no 
matter what the bounties of Providence may be, 
my possessions shall never go^ O, what a bless- 
ing it had been to thousands had they adopted 
such a resolution ! Many who prospered up to 
a point which they would have once thought 
affluence, not then content, pressed forward, and 
by a few errors dispersed the gatherings of a 
lifetime. Many for years employed their grow- 



44 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

ing wealth to do good ; but at length they had 
outgrown their religious strength, and, like a 
youth failing under his own stature, their virtues 
died of decline. Happy would it be for many 
did they set a limit to their aims, and add noth- 
ing beyond ! 'Whenever this is . done in the 
spirit of humble faith, surely it is good and ac- 
ceptable to God. But I cannot undertake to 
teach that it is laid down in Scripture as an in- 
cumbent duty. 

" Away on the very horizon of sacred history, 
amid the glory of its dawn, we see— shall I say, 
a group ? — three personages ; the first, shrouded 
with that excelling light which no man can ap- 
proach unto ; the second, dark with that dark- 
ness which, thank God ! neither our words nor 
our imagination can picture ; the third, a man 
of like passions with ourselves. To this man the 
Maker of all points the tempter of all, and says : 
' Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there 
is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an 
upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth 
evil V And who is this of whom we have such 
testimony as never was borne to other man : — 
who is held up to the accuser of saints as a tri- 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 45 

umphant instance of the redeeming power of 
grace ? He is one whose wealth. is almost count- 
less, who has distanced every cotemporary, and 
is the greatest of all the men of the East. It is 
plain that his immense possessions were no stain 
upon his ^record which was on Kigh.' But ere 
you exult, in the belief that you may innocently 
accumulate to an indefinite amount, carefully 
mark how he employed his wealth. 

" While his children were holding family feasts, 
and the joy of abundance was in all their homes, 
he was 'continually' rising early, going to the 
altar of God, and offering up offerings in large 
number. And how did he Hve among his neigh- 
bors while thus honoring his God ? ' "When the 
ear heard me, then it blessed me ; and when the 
eye saw me, it gave witness to me : because T 
delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, 
and him that had none to help him. The bless- 
ing of him that was ready to perish came upon 
me : and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy 
.... I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the 
lame. I was a father to the poor; and the cause 
which I knew not I searched out.' Job xxix, 1 1 , &c. 

*' Go thou and do likewise. Thus continually 



46 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

and liberally offer unto God ; thus bountifully 
and actively distribute to man ; and so long as 
we see you so doing, ' may your garners be full, 
affording all manner of store !' I, at least, will 
cbeerfully leave it to Providence to fix the limit 
of your increase. But one word : as you proceed 
upward, one earnest word : walk warily on those 
heights ! Heads are often turned up there ; and 
there are fearful gulfs if you fall ! 

" While, however, we do not contend that to 
let ' riches increase ' is forbidden, or even that to 
permit that increase to an indefinite amount is 
contrary to clear Scripture, we do contend : — 

" That not to give away any part of our income 
is unlawful : 

" That to leave what we shall give to be deter- 
mined by impulse or chance, without any princi- 
ple to guide us, is unlawful : 

" That to fix a principle for our guidance, by 
our own disposition, or by prevalent usage, with- 
out seeking light in the word of God, is un- 
lawful : 

"That when we search the Scriptures for a 
principle, the very lowest proportion of our in- 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 4*7 

come for which we can find any show of justifi- 
cation, is a tenth of the whole : 

" That, therefore, it is our duty to give away 
statedly, for the service and honor of our God, at 
the very least one-tenth of all which he commits 
to our stewardship. 

" These, my brethren, are my views as to the 
duty for which I am now pleading ; and are, I 
presume, however shades and points may vary, 
in substance the views of the clergymen by whose 
call I stand here. 

"As TO THE GROUNDS ON WHICH THIS DUTY 

RESTS. Let us suppose that it does not rest on 
any grounds whatever ; that the idea of such a 
duty is without foundation ; that we are each at 
liberty to choose what proportion of his posses- 
sions he shall give away, from the nearest ap- 
proach to nothing upward ; so that if one give a 
tenth, another a ninetieth, and another one-thou- 
sandth part, they difi'er not in this, — that one is 
liberal, the other covetous, and the third a wretch ; 
but in this, — that the one is hberal, the other less 
liberal, and the other less so still ; each of them 
practicing a virtue, a voluntary virtue, only in vari- 



48 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

ous degrees. This is the plain meaning and practi- 
cal application of a notion which floats in undefined 
thought, and is often expressed in vague language 
by many excellent people,— a notion about Chris- 
tianity leaving the amount of liberality to the 
private will and disposition of each individual. 

" If that view be correct, then it follows that in 
Christian morals we have one virtue which has no 
minimum limit^ no expiring point ; which con- 
tinues to be a virtue down to within a hairbreadth 
of nothing, no matter how largely mixed with 
the opposite vice. Shall we apply this principle 
to the other virtues ? For instance, truth ? Are 
we not apt to think that, however much truth 
may be in a statement, if it is mixed with a Httle 
deception the virtue of it is gone ? And as to 
honesty, Do we not feel that whatever amount of 
honesty may be in a transaction, if mixed with 
any cheating the virtue is destroyed '? And are 
we to hold that any miserable gift, somewhat 
short of nothing, which a covetous man may give, 
is yet an act of liberality, though in a low degree ? 
Is liberality the one virtue which Christianity has 
abandoned, in this cold world, to every man's 
whim, which she never pronounces violated so 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 49 

long as it is not totally renoimced and abjured ? 
Surely there is some point far short of nothing, 
at which gifts cease to be ' hberal,' and begin to 
be ' vile ;' at which a giver ceases to be ' bounti- 
ful,' and deserves to be called a ' churl !' 

" One thing is certain, that if Christianity has 
set no minimum limit to generosity, it has set 
a maximum limit. If we are at liberty to press 
down our generosity to the lowest discernible 
point, we are not at liberty to push it up without 
check. Christianity commands plainly, 'Owe no 
man anything ;' so that I cannot give away 
money while I am unable to pay my debts with- 
out violating the laws of my .religion. She also 
plainly declares, that if any man provide not for 
his own, and especially for those of his own house, 
he has denied the faith, and is worse than an 
' infidel.' Therefore I cannot give away money 
while my own are unprovided for, or left to be 
provided for by others, without violating the laws 
of my religion. Is it, then, probable that Christ's 
good Gospel, while marking points in the upward 
progress of generosity, at which it would pass 
into injustice, has marked none in its downward 
progress at which it would pass into selfishness ? 
3 



60 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

" If Christianity has left benevolence entirely to 
private decision, it also follovi^s thxit^ while those 
branches of expenditure which regard our self- 
interest are regulated by fixed circumstances^ that 
which is for the glory of God is at the mercy of 
chance. The three circumstances already named 
— family, locality, station — decide for each of us, 
to a great extent, the scale of many items of our 
outlay. Your rent is tolerably well fixed from 
year to year, your board is not very uncertain, 
your dress, and every other claim of self-interest, 
has its proportion not ill-defined ; and is it prob- 
able that while every outlay that nourishes self 
is regular, that only outlay which tends to free 
you from earth, and connect your hopes with a 
better country, is precisely the one which the re- 
ligion of Jesus has left to be the football of pas- 
sion or of accident ? 

" ' I do not mean,' you say, ' that we are at 
liberty to give by mere chance, without fixing 
some principle ; I only mean, we are not bound 
to a tenth.' Not bound to a tenth ! No, most 
surely, we are not bound to a tenth. If that be 
your meaning, then thy heart is as my heart. 
No principle of the Gospel, no precept of the law, 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 51 

ever glances in the direction of binding us to a 
tenth. But is it possible that you mean some- 
thing which you do not say ? Is it possible that 
when you speak of not being bound to a tenth, 
you mean we are at liberty to make up our 
minds not to give a tenth, but to give something 
less ? Well, so let it be. Suppose that a Chris- 
tian, without offending against his religion, may 
spend on self-interests more than nine-tenths of 
his income ; then it follows that it is lawful for 
a Christian to be more selfish than luas lawful 
for a Jew. This conclusion may not be agree- 
able ; but it is clear. Every Jew was blessed 
with a religion which checked his downward, 
earthward tendency at the very least to this ex- 
tent, — that one-tenth went to sacred things, and 
thus connected with them his affections and his 
hopes. Less than that he could not consecrate 
to ^he service of his God without a trespass 
against his religion. If, then, a Christian may 
give less, his rehgion elevates him in a lower de- 
gree, leaves him to be more earthly without 
guilt, and less noble without reproach, 

" One other consequence follows. If a Christian 
may, according to his religion, lawfully devote 



52 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

less than a tenth of his income to holy purposes, 
then Christianity has lowered the standard 
OF A VIRTUE, and that the virtue of hberahty ! 
The Jew who gave less than one-tenth was 
branded by his religion a dinner. That sys- 
tem, which we regard as so much more earthly, 
so much less spiritual and heavenly than ours, 
ever held the standard of pecuniary self-denial up 
to that point at the very least. And is it come 
to this that our Christianity, our religion of love 
and sacrifice, let down the standard of this special 
virtue below the point where it stood when 
she came to warm our world ? We know the 
thousand contrivances to escape from this conclu- 
sion. But, however often you cite the difference 
between an agricultural and a commercial people ; 
however much you talk of Levites, tribes, rent- 
charges, and adjustments ; however many lanes 
you enter from your starting-point, if you follow 
any one of them to its end it will land you in 
front of this conclusion : Christianity has low- 
ered THE STANDARD OF A VIRTUE. 

"But I will not further follow the supposition 
that the duty of giving away at least a tenth of 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 53 

our income has no grounds ; for the conclusions 
to which it leads are not satisfactory. I will now 
assert that it has grounds. They may be thus 
stated : — 

" Giving is an essential part of the 
Christian religion. This position needs no 
special argument. In support of it the whole 
New Testament cries aloud. The system of 
redemption is, from first to last, one prodigious 
process of giving. God loved the world, and 
GAVE his only-begotten Son. The Son loved us, 
and GAVE himself to death for us all. This 
giving does not rest at the point of bounty, but 
passes on to that of inconceivable sacrifice. 
Every man on whose spirit the true hght of re- 
demption breaks, finds himself heir to a heritage 
of givings which began on the eve of time, and 
will keep pace with the course of eternity. To 
giving he owes his all ; in giving he sees the 
most substantial evidence he can off'er that he is 
a fateful debtor. The self-sacrifice of Him in 
whom he trusts says, far more touchingly than 
words could say, ' It is more blessed to give than 
to receive.' 

" Griving is ordained by Christianity to he both 



54 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

hountiful and cheerful. It does not satisfy the 
demands of our religion that we give ; we must 
give much. ' He that soweth sparingly shall reap 
also sparingly.' This refers to the amount of 
gifts ; but having decided that the amount must 
be unsparing, Christianity is not even then con- 
tent ; that unsparing amount must be given with 
a cheerful heart, ' not grudgingly, or of necessity, 
for God loveth a cheerful giver.' One of the odd- 
est things in all argument is, that this passage is 
sometimes relied upon as a cover for those who 
claim liberty to give away as little as ever they 
please. Let them turn to the passage, (2 Cor. 
ix, 5-7,) and they will see that it is not left 
to them, or to any man, to decide whether giv- 
ing shall be on a bountiful or a sparing scale. 
That it is not to be sparing, and is to be bounti- 
ful, is settled ; and then a cheerful heart is com- 
manded in addition. The twofold requirement 
is a gift not sparing as to amount, nor grudging 
as to feeling. One may cheerfully give a sparing 
gift who would grudge a bountiful one ; and one 
who, from 'necessity,' from pressure, or shame, 
gives a large gift, may grudge while he gives. 
Do not spare when you give, and do not grudge 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 55 

when you make sacrifices ! This is the voice 
of a passage which some would fain use to cloak 
their unwillingness to make liberality a regulated 
and well-considered virtue. 

"A sparing, a bountiful, and a grudging giver 
may all be met with in your every-day life. You 
call on a wealthy gentleman, Mr. Close, for the 
Patriotic Fund. ' Yes ; it is a good cause, a great 
public occasion ; every one ought to do his share ; 
but really one has so much to do, one is always 
giving. However, I have great pleasure in giv- 
ing my mite ; you are perfectly welcome, gentle- 
men, to this trifle :' and he gives you five dollars. 
You modestly hesitate, tell him that much will 
depend 'on his example, and that, from his posi- 
tion, you had hoped for something considerable, 
say a hundred dollars. ' dear no ! I could 
never afibrd that. That is a subscription for a 
man of wealth. I am very happy to give my 
mite ; but I never thought of any sum like 
that.' 

"From this sparing, but cheerful giver, you 
pass to another, Mr. Goode. He just hears you, 
and saying, * Ah, poor fellows ! little we can do 
to what they are doing !' puts clown his name for 



56 MEETING- AT THE TABERNACLE. 

five hundred dollars. This is neither sparing nor 
grudging. 

" From him you go to Mr. Sharj^e. He hears 
your statement. ' O yes ! all the principal peo- 
ple are giving to it. One must do something 
respectable. Will you let me see your book, 
gentlemen ? What ! Goode down for five hun- 
dred dollars ! I know why he did that. It was 
to be ahead of me, or rather to spite me ; for he 
knew I would never be behind him. It is not the 
first time he has served me so ; but I 'm not going 
to let him stand before me for the sake of five hun- 
dred dollars.' And so he puts down five hundred. 

" Now, while this gift professes to be an act 
done out of consideration for others, it is really one 
done out of consideration for himself ; and, while 
his hand was giving, his heart was grudging. 

" The greedy man who v^-ould grudge a large 
gift, but makes a merit of a small one ; and the 
vain man who must stand high, even in giving, 
and grudges the price he pays for his importance, 
are equally far from Christianity. A bounty 
that reaches the point of sacrifice, and a heart- 
charity that rejoices in such sacrifice, can alone 
meet the call of the Gospel. 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 5*7 

"/if is ordained hy Christianity that our 
bountiful and cheerful giving shall he in propor- 
tion to our means, 'Upon the first day of the 
week let every one of you lay by him in store, 
as God hath prospered him.'' Here the scale 
which regulates giving is decisively taken from 
the hand of impulse, chance, or personal disposi- 
tion. Whether our giving is or is not to be in 
proportion to the bounties of God to us, is no 
matter of debate. The principle of proportion is 
enjoined in the New Testament. But the pas- 
sage decides nothing as to what appKcation of 
the law of proportion is to be made. One who 
gives a hundredth part of his increase, observes 
a proportion as much as one who gives a fifth ; 
and might plead that he was giving as God had 
prospered him, if he could find ground in Scrip- 
ture for the behef that one-hundredth would be 
acceptable. 

"This scripture, 'As God hath prospered 
him,' forces us to ask. What is giving in pro- 
portion to God's gifts to us ? If we seek an 
answer in the New Testament, everything seems 
to push up the scale to a proportion from which 
we nearly all shrink away. We find Hberality 
3^' 



58 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

in a rich man sanctioned up to ' half his goods,' 
as in the case of Zaccheus ; and in a poor widow 
up to *all her living,' as with the two mites. 
We find a whole Church selling their property, 
and giving away without limit; and though 
that example is never enforced on others, it is 
never reproved. We find the Church of Mace- 
donia in ' depths of poverty,' and also in ' a great 
trial of afflictions,' abounding in ' riches of liber- 
ality;' and their record is written for the grati- 
tude of all ages, that they gave 'beyond their 
power.' And these early Christians, who thus 
rejoiced to bestow, are melted to yet greater 
sacrifices by words so winning and so mighty as, 
'Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he 
became poor, that ye through his poverty might 
be rich.' 

" Turn where you will in the l^ew Testament 
in search of an answer to the question, ' What is 
giving as God has prospered me V you are sur- 
rounded by an atmosphere of fervid joy and 
love ; you are invaded by a feeling of which the 
words are, ' Glory to God in the highest, and on 
earth peace, good-will to men ;' and the deeds 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 59 

are every good work, distributing, communicat- 
ing, making sacnfices with which God is well 
pleased ; you are stimulated by examples of 
apostles forsaking all, individuals selling all, 
Churches bestowing all, the deeply poor giving 
to the poorer, and, to crown the whole, the 
Master giving always, and storing never, and 
then giving himself a ransom for all. You feel 
that if you are to take your answer to the 
question by honest, logical inference from that 
book, any thought 'of a tenth is out of sight, 
and you must contemplate a style of giving 
which no one I know — perhaps I do know some 
of the poor who would — but which no one of 
the comfortable classes, in our day, would think 
of following. 

" If, fearful to press New Testament precept 
and example, we go to the Old to learn what 
the Lord counted acceptable in ancient times, 
we find that each head of a family among the 
Jews was bound by direct enactment to give a 
tenth of all his yearly increase to the support of 
the ministering tribe of Levi ; besides, he had to 
pay a second tenth for the support of the feasts ; 
a third tenth for the poor was given once in 



60 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

three years ; and in addition were the trespass- 
oiFerings, long and costly journeys to the temple, 
and sundry other religious charges, all imposed 
by divine sanction; besides free-will offerings. 
Taking these separate items, it is undoubted 
that among the Jews every head of a family 
was under religious obligation to give away at 
least a ffth^ jperha'ps a third ^ of his yearly 
income, 

" Passing on to the Patriarchs, you find 
Jacob, when houseless, awaking from his sleep 
by the road-side, solemnly vowing to the 
God of his fathers, that if only * bread to eat 
and raiment to put on ' were granted to him in 
his exile, a tenth of all should be rendered back 
in honor of his God. And further up, where 
you see Abraham, the father and representative 
of all believers, standing before Melchizedek, 
the type, not of the Levitical priesthood, but 
of our Great High Priest, he gives him a tenth 
of all, though the goods were the property 
of others, of which he would not, for his pri- 
vate benefit, take * from a thread to a shoe- 
latchet;' but yet he asserted the claims of the; 
Lord upon all 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 61 

" Thus, in the patriarchal dispensation, a tenth 
seems to be the recognized portion which the 
Lord accepts. In the Mosaic dispensation, by 
express ordinances, that proportion is raised to at 
least a fifth ; and when we come into the Gospel 
dispensation, we are sensible at once of a notable 
rise in the temperature of benevolence. Here 
the idea of a religion less generous, less self- 
denying, less indifferent to sordid hoards or per- 
sonal comforts, is not only inadmissible, but 
atrocious. Whatever of heavenliness and large 
heart was in the religion of prophets, receives an 
expansion and not a chill, and selfish man is 
placed at last in his highest school of un- 
selfishness. 

" Whether, then, we take the Old Testament 
or the New, the lowest proportion of giving for 
which we can find any pretext, or foot-hold 
whatever, in command or in precedent, is one- 
tenth. He who fixes on this, dehberately fixes 
on far less than was required of a Jew. He 
who fixes on less than this, deliberately excludes 
all Scripture instruction, and chooses a standard 
for which no part of God's word ofi'ers a jus- 
tification. 



62 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

" But several objections are taken against our 
conclusion, some of which we ought to notice. 

" * /^ urging upon us to give away a tenth^ 
you are reviving the Levitical law^ and that is 
abolished.'^ The difference between those who 
hold that the Levitical law stands, and those 
who hold that it is abolished, lies perhaps more 
in word than reality. Those who hold that it 
stands, would hardly contend that the letter is in 
force ; for that was, that the tenth should be 
given to the tribe of Levi, which, to the letter, 
we cannot fulfill. And those who hold that it is 
abolished, surely do not mean that its spirit is 
abolished. The spirit of that law is, ' Of Thine 
own have we given unto thee.' This is not 
abolished ; and, blessed be God ! never will be. 
And surely you do not mean that this spirit, a 
spirit so right and good, in passing from Judaism 
to Christianity, forsook a more sensitive body 
for one grosser and heavier with earth ! "We 
need not pause to show that, quite independently 
of the Levitical tenth, the other requirements 
of the Mosaic law demand more than a second 
tenth ; and that the Patriarchs gave their tenth 
before ever Levi was. 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 63 

^^'But IV e are not now to he brought under 
rule ; for the law is love,'' I know tliat some who 
thus speak do so upon the best grounds. A good 
man has a small income and a large family; 
he has also a warm heart, and his neighbors 
know it. Though he never adopted any specific 
proportion, he is conscious, and so is his wife, by 
daily experience, that he gives away Ho his 
power, yea, and beyond his power.' When he 
hears of forming a rule, and walking by it, he 
feels that for him it is unnecessary ; and he 
pleads, ' The law is love,'' "Were all like him, 
most gladly should we leave it here. But many 
whose heart has never led them into the troubles 
of over-giving, gladly catch up his words, and, 
as a simple defense against giving something 
definite, cry, * The law is love,^ 

" To you who use this objection we have only 
one thing to say : K the law is love, will you 
keep the law? Then all we contend for, and 
more than all, is secured. Among laws, none is 
near so exacting as love. It has never felt, 
never done, never given enough. It is ' never- 
ending, still-beginning.' Its great things of yes- 
terday are little things to-day ; and its great 



64 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

things to-day will be little things to-morrow. 
The law of love ! It is, ' Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neigh- 
bor as thyself,^ And you invoke the law of 
love to save your money ! 

"As a matter for personal guidance, the definite 
meaning of this expression is something like this : 
' The heart that is right is full of love. Love ful- 
fills all law, and secures the rights of God and 
man. Therefore the heart that is right is a law 
to itself, and needs no other rule. But my heart 
is right, and is sure to fulfill the law without 
special rules.' Is that safe reasoning? If your 
heart be so right to-day, may it not wax cold 
some other day ? and would it not be well 
to have a test by which to try its warmth ? 
Or may there not be some like me who can- 
not trust so surely to their heart? but feel 
that it is a wholesome thing to have clear 
rules whereby its dispositions may be often 
measured. 

" Love may be a good reason for going above 
rules ; but it is the worst in the world for staying 
below them, or without them. It is a law of 
love which binds a man to provide for the com- 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. bO 

fort of his family ; but surely that is no reason 
why he should refuse to give his wife a regular 
allowance for the expenses of housekeeping. 

" ' But you speak of giving a tenth : — -that is an 
arithmetical laio ; and you will never bring the 
hearts of Christians under a cold arithmetical 
law!' This is a very tremendous objection. 
Half the sympathies of an audience are in dan- 
ger of being lost the moment they hear that our 
rule is a cold arithmetical law. Arithmetic sounds 
of school-books, and counting-houses, and mar- 
kets, and hard problems, and dry statistics, and 
other ungenerous things. Well, it is so, and we 
cannot deny it; to say you are bound to give 
away at the very least a tenth of your all, is to 
speak the language of arithmetic. But is the 
principle the less sacred for that ? ' Remember 
the seventh day to keep it holy.' That is an 
arithmetical expression ! And is there anything 
unhallowed in the Sabbath because a square 
seventh is cut off from our time, and is just in 
that arithmetical proportion to be consecrated 
to God ? Again, it is ordained that a bishop 
shall be the husband of but one wife, which ip 
an arithmetical law. 



66 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

"But if our specious friends who object to nar- 
row arithmetical laws will observe their own giv- 
ings, it will prove that somehow arithmetic follows 
them wherever they go. For if you do not give 
a tenth, but a ninetieth, even that is an arithmet- 
ical proportion ; and if, instead of giving a tenth 
all the year through, you only give a tenth of 
one day's income for the whole year, still that is 
an arithmetical proportion, — though it might 
be hard to ascertain it ; and, in fact, go down, 
however low you may, if you give anything 
whatever, at any time whatever, it still bears an 
arithmetical proportion to the whole. Did we 
name a tenth as the high standard of Christian 
benevolence, and confine ourselves to it, we might 
be taunted with arithmetic ; but when we name 
it only as the lowest point at which any foot- 
ing can be found, and leave all above free, that 
arrow flies below us. 

" ' But if you teach men to give a tenth^ they 
will give that and he content^ though they ought 
to he giving much more. This is an objection of 
real gravity. Doubtless, did we succeed in pro- 
ducing generally in the Churches the state of 
feeling that all were bound to give at least a tenth, 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 6l 

many would think themselves generous in giving 
that, when perhaps a third or a half would only 
be their just proportion. But how do matters 
stand at present ? Multitudes of sincere Chris- 
tians are royally content, though they give 
nothing like a tenth ; and could we succeed in 
bringnng up the Church generally to that pro- 
portion, (though far below what we hold to be 
the due of many,) the state of things then would 
present a wonderful improvement on that existing 
now. 

" But I question whether adopting the princi- 
ple of proportion would tend to make men content 
with the minimum proportion, after they were 
abundantly prospered. So far as my knowledge 
of its practical working goes, my impression is 
the reverse. It is my pleasure to know many 
men who, at the outset of life, or early in life, 
adopted Jacob's resolution to give a tenth. 
These have all been prosperous men. I do not 
know one of them but shows that the eflfect of 
his early adopting the principle of a tenth, has 
been to prepare him for a higher proportion 
when years of plenty set in. 

" And is it not natural that such should be the 



68 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

effect ? There is a gi-eat, not to sav a tremendous, 
power over man in that very principle of arith- 
metical proportion which it is so easy to spurn. 
When an arbitrary proportion of our time or 
goods is taken, — a proportion for which reason 
has no more to say than for any other, — what is 
the effect upon the mind ? It serves as a practi- 
cal claim of sovereignty on the part of the Cre- 
ator. It says, 'This is claimed, because all 
might be claimed. He who accepts this, owns 
all, and holds you to account for the rest.' It is 
not probable that year after year one will care- 
fully set apart a fixed proportion for the ser\dce 
of his God, without becoming habi*tuated to feel 
that he is neither author nor owner of any frac- 
tion of property, but merely steward ; and that 
He at whose feet he lays the first-fruits is the 
Lord, the giver of all. Such stated setting 
apart is a practical beeping of the precept, 
'Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: 
for it is he that giveth thee power to get 
wealth.' And whoever thus begins life by keep- 
ing a law of proportion, is the most likely of all 
men to advance his proportion, as his Benefactor 
augments his blessing. 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 59 

" ^But we ought not to speak of a tenth, a fifth, 
or any other jyroportion ; our duty as Christians 
is to give all!' That is not correct. Our duty 
is not to give away all ; but to employ all accord- 
ing to the will of God, and so as to be pleasing 
in his sight. It is our positive duty not to give 
away all ; but to spend suitable proportions of 
our income in supplying our own wants, and 
those of our families, as also in fulfilling any 
commercial or other calling for w^hich property is 
needful. Our objector replies, ' Of course, what 
I meant was, all after our reasonable wants are 
supplied. We ought to give absolutely all the 
surplus, and not save any.' 

In the lips of some, — and I could name the 
very man, — this means noble and incessant 
liberality ; but in the lips of most, it would just 
mean giving as much as was perfectly con- 
venient. If every one, before assigning any por- 
tion as a thank-offering to the Giver of all, is to 
spend what meets his views of providing for his 
own and his children's wants, present and pros- 
pective, in ninety-nine out. of every hundred 
cases it will prove that the surplus for giving 
away is next to nothing. In many cases, giving 



70 MEETINa AT THE TABERNACLE. 

liberally will be postponed till family provision is 
made, and resources are fairly in advance of de- 
mands ; and by that time all heart for giving 
will he gone. In fact, this rule of giving away all 
you have to spare, is that by which multitudes 
think they are living ; whereas, could they get an 
account of all they gave on this system last year, 
and resolve next year to consecrate the small 
proportion of a tenth, they would be utterly 
astonished to find how much the latter exceeds 
their habitual liberality. 

One strong reason for some definite rule lies 
in this : That we have far better memories for our 
virtues than for our obligations, — for the pounds 
we give away, than for those we receive, or spend 
upon ourselves. Even truly excellent persons, 
who have not tested their givings, monstrously 
exaggerate the amount of them to their own 
mind. The relish of one act of liberality remains 
long upon the lips ; and some who believe that 
' their hand is never out of their pocket,' would 
be confounded if the great account where all 
items are entered were placed before them, and 
they saw how miserably little their endless deeds 
of generosity amount to. The first expenditure 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 1l 

of all should be that which sanctifies the rest, — 
that which is not for self, or flesh, or earth, 
or time, but for the Lord, for gratitude, for the 
training of the soul, for store in heaven. Our 
own morsel will be sweeter, and more wholesome 
too, when the due acknowledgment has been 
first laid, with a bountiful hand and a thankful 
heart, on the altar of the Saviour. ' Ye shall eat 
neither bread nor parched corn, nor green ears, 
until the self-same day that ye have brought an 
ofibring to your God.' Lev. xxiii, 11. This was 
the spirit of the first-fi^uits — a spirit of noble 
preference for holy feeling over selfish care. 

"Another advantage of deciding that a con- 
secrated proportion shall take the precedence of 
all other outlay, instead of counting on giving 
what we have to spare, is this : It materially 
afiBcts our scale of personal expenditure. Our 
ideas of what is necessary are ruled by our 
knowledge of what we have to spend. A gen- 
tleman with five hundred a year, who means to 
give away what he can spare, unless he be a man 
of extraordinary generosity and decision united, 
(which cases are never the rule,) forms his whole 
scheme of expenditure on the basis of five hun- 



12 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

dred a year, and finds it bard, now and then, to 
spare a pound or two ; not that he is unwilHng, 
but all his resources are preengaged. Another 
with the same income has his regular Benevo- 
lent Fund, into which the first fifth of his 
income goes. The effect is, that all his plans of 
expenditure proceed on the basis of four hundred 
a year ; and thus while the Benevolent Fund is 
strong for all legitimate claims, it pays itself — 
perhaps more than pays itself — by acting as a 
check upon the funds laid aside for pleasure- 
trips and diversions, and several other exigent 
funds on which millions of our domestic revenues 
are wasted. We, then, hesitate not for a moment 
to prefer the rule of giving regular first-fruits, 
even in the low proportion of a tenth, over the 
rule of giving all we have to spare. This last, 
while for a strong and holy man the highest of 
laws, is for the great majority a law which 
amounts to no more than is now prevalent. 

^''But^ at all events, surely you would not 
apply your rule to the 'poor? Certainly not to 
the destitute. One object of liberality is to 
relieve and comfort them. But rising above those 
who need help, upon whom do you fix as poor? 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 73 

The man who can afford to spend money on 
whisky or tobacco, is he poor? The woman 
who can afford to spend money on fineries, is she 
poor? It would be no small blessing, if some 
of those well-meaning but ill-judging persons 
who are continually telling the poor that they 
are too poor to do any good, or support any 
cause, would stand out of the way of the poor. 
The worst thing you can do for a man is to 
pauperize him. If there be a poor man here, — 
and I hope there is ; for I never like to see an 
assembly of human beings where there are none 
of the poor, — I would say to him, Never count 
that man your friend who teaches you to lean on 
other people. He is your friend, and your chil- 
dren's friend, who teaches you to lean alone on 
the good providence of God, and on your own 
right hand. 

" On the very same grounds that it is a serious 
injury to a man to pauperize him, it is a gi-eat 
service to teach him to save something, and give 
it away. The one induces feebleness, the other 
power; the one inclines him to be listless in 
earning, and thriftless in spending ; the other to 
be hopeful in earning, and careful in spending. 
4 



74 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

The moment a man begins to save something 
and give it away, he rises in the social scale, and 
lakes his place in the family circle of useful men. 
As to the godly poor, I will test this whole 
question of proportionate giving by their verdict, 
sooner than by that of any other class. Let 
some of those who would bid us not ask them to 
give, learn what they do, and, perhaps, they will 
look anew to their own proportions. And when 
one sees how the poor tax themselves by waste, 
by hurtful luxuries, by ill-spent time, how often 
their spare money, not preengaged for good 
ends, is the cause of their ruin, one feels indig- 
nant at those self-constituted friends of theirs 
who would protect them from the calls of gener- 
osity, — the very calls which would raise and 
make men of them ; and we say. Stand out of 
the way of the poor ! 

" There was One who was no amateur in 
poverty, but had known it from the manger, in 
His own lot and that of His friends. Did He 
think it a pity that the widow should give away 
her two mites? or did He tell Mary that the 
exceedingly costly box of ointment was too much 
for one of her means ? And when the prophet 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 75 

heard fi'om the widow of whom he had begged 
a little bread, that she was so poor as to say, 
^ I have not a cake,' did he think it would be a 
loss to her to give, for the Lord's sake, a little of 
her meal ? He who delights in mercy has never 
yet denied to the poor the joy of giving. The 
apostle Paul plainly contemplates gi\ing as the 
immediate result of labor in the case of one 
recovered from the class of thieves. 'Let him 
that stole steal no more : but rather let him 
labor, working w^ith his own hands the thing 
that is good, that he may have to give to him 
that needeth^ Eph. iv, 28. If, then, a reformed 
thief, just beginning to earn his own bread, is at 
once to set before him the joy of giving away a 
share of his earnings, who dare degrade the 
working men of Christendom, by telling them 
they are to look on themselves as meant only to 
feed their own wants ? O what a blessing had 
it been to many a poor working man, what a 
saving to his means, what a comfort to his 
home, had his father trained him to honor the 
Lord with the first-fruits of all his increase ! 

" ''But there are those whom ive do not call the 
poor, who yet are in more straits than they — per- 



76 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

sons of small means and respectable position,'^ I 
should be the last man on earth to press hard on 
that class; nor are there any sorrows I would 
hold more sacred than theirs, who unite in them- 
selves the feelings of the rich and the fortunes of 
the poor. Poverty is a cold wind ; and the 
higher your situation the colder it blows. But 
this is to be said. However sacred may be the 
claims of respectability, of the desire to honor 
your family, and maintain your appearances, 
more sacred still are the claims of gratitude, 
piety, and goodness. Nor will it ever prove that 
what you painfully spare from your own respect- 
abihty for the purpose of honoring your God, 
will fail to bring back its reward. 'Them that 
honor Me, I will honor.' 

"These are the chief objections to our argu- 
ment ; and having thus noticed them, I now pro- 
ceed to — 

"Plead for practical attention to the 

DUTY. 

" By ' practical attention to ' it, I do not mean 
that we should be much interested in the subject, 
feel ourselves in a very generous frame, look with 



MEETING- AT THE TABERNACLE. T7 

great indulgence on the lecturer, think the ad- 
dress must do good, and intend to be much more 
hberal than we have been ; then go away and 
sav all this a few times, and comfortably come 
round, in the course of a week or two, to our old 
habits. By 'practical attention to' it, T mean 
somethino' different from all this — somethino- de- 

o o 

cided, something instant, something permanent 
and life-long. I mean that every one here, with- 
out exception, especially the young — for you 
whose hairs are white had need be thinking of 
much more than a tenth — that all the young, in 
solemn gratitude to their God, and under an 
humble sense that he is owner and they are stew- 
ards, should now, here, and irrevocably resolve 
that, by the help of divine grace, henceforth to 
the day when money ceases to be treasure, ' Of 

ALL THAT ThOU SHALT GIVE ME, I WILL SURELY 
GIVE THE TENTH TO ThEE.' 

" This resolve once come to, it only remains 
that, at stated times, the consecrated portion of 
what the Lord gives you be set apart for his 
service, and that it be cheerfully given away. 
Those stated times may be either weeklv, quar- 
terly, half-yearly, or yearly, according as you can 



78 MEETING- AT THE TABERNACLE. 

ascertain your income."* Those are points of de- 
tail of the utmost importance, which any one 
who is really resolved will soon adjust for him- 
self. But my point is to obtain the firm resolu- 
tion of steady and habitual liberahty for all that 
remains of life. I do not want a temporary sur- 
face-glow, but a permanent quickening of the 
circulation, by greater strength at the heart. 
Life is ebbing, time is flying, opportunities of 
doing good are daily growing fewer, and the mo- 
ment is come for something practical. I plead, 

'■•' *' Persons wlio have fixed incomes may easily adopt 
the direct method of weekly ' laying by them store ' 
for benevolence. For those whose income is derived 
from business, this is not so easy ; but a gentleman 
in Dublin, after hearing the lecture, told me a plan he 
had formed, which would be easily applied in thou- 
sands of cases. In substance it was this : ' By years 
of experience I know, after making allowance for bad 
debts and so on, what per centage of my gross returns 
comes to me, on the average, as clear profit. Every 
week I know what my sales have been. If, therefore, 
I take that per centage on the week^s sales, it repre- 
sents my " increase ^^ for the week ; and hereafter, 
each Monday morning, I will draw " a tenth '^ of that, 
and put it to a benevolent fund.' May thousands go 
and do likewise !'' 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 79 

then, most importunately plead, for practical at- 
tention to this duty now, I plead for man's 
sake, for the Gospel's sake, for the Church's sake, 
for the Lord's sake^ for your own sake. 

"I PLEAD FOR man's SAKE, that men may 
learn that Christians are sincere. Thousands 
dwell in the midst of us who never thought of 
formally disbelieving the word of God ; yet they 
have a habitual suspicion, more than a suspicion, 
that the practical religion of religious men is only 
a seemly garb which is beautiful on Sunday, 
serves to go to Church in, and is at all times 
respectable. This suspicion is one of the most 
serious obstacles to their own conversion. There 
are in this city hundreds w^ho would be brought 
nearer to salvation did they only feel in their 
conscience that the faith, hope, and love of Chris- 
tian men are not a profession, but a matter of 
the heart. Now all worldly men have one deep 
instinct: they believe that a man is sincere in 
what he ivill pay for. If they, then, see religious 
men cheerfully and largely paying for their rehg- 
ion, the habit of doubting their sincerity will 
gradually be worn away. And surely those 
principles are w^orth little which are not worth 



80 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

paying for. A religion that did not check our 

selfishness could not come from a God of love. 
He who is not willing to pay for his religion has 
no right to have a religion. Creatures there are, 
and creatures, too, calling themselves Christians 
above all names, who would fain take thie benefits 
of Jesus's religion of love, without it costing them 
anything ! O, could we lift one such soul ab- 
ruptly away from the midst of this assembly, up 
and up into yonder celestial light, and there set 
it upon the Sea of Glass : as it saw its own image 
reflected in that sea, with so much of greed, of 
earthiness, of self, of meanness, shown in the 
blaze of that day, would it not shriek out in ter- 
ror that heaven was the most horribly expos- 
ing place whereinto a poor wretch was ever 
driven ? 

" I plead for man's sake, that men may learn 
that Providence is benevolent. One most ruinous 
influence at work in society is the general distrust 
in the vigilance of a power who befriends the 
right. Most men believe they can prosper more 
quickly and more surely by keeping an easy con- 
science than a pure one, by practicing clever eva- 
sions of right than by boldly shunning all known 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 81 

wronof. To confront this unbelief, to demonstrate 
before all men that the power above us does 
smile upon uprightness and generosity, is the 
high calling of every godly man. You are not 
only to obtain your neighbor's admission that the 
Lord is King of the world to come — they are 
ready enough to grant that ; another point needful 
for their salvation is to bring them to feel that 
He is Lord and King of the world that now is. 
They easily believe that he is the disposer of 
crowns and harps hereafter ; but they do not so 
easily believe that he is the disposer of dollars 
and cents ! Doubting here, for the sake of the 
pressing to-day, they risk the infinite but unfelt 
to-morrow. Satan ever boasts, as he did to our 
Master, that both the good and the glory of this 
world are in his power, and that to whomsoever 
he will he gives them. To deny this claim, to 
maintain the opposite, to lead men to turn up- 
ward a reverent eye, and say loyally to the Lord 
of all, 'Both riches and honor come of thee,' 
nothing is so effectual as that all God's servants 
shall sacredly honor him with the first fruits of 
their increase. Doing this, it will soon be seen 
that they who acknowledge Providence bloom in 
4* 



82 MEETING AT THE TABEUNACLE. 

its sunshine, and that seldom indeed is one of 
their number struck with a blight. Bands — not 
here and there an individual, as much an excep- 
tion in the Chm-ch as in the world, but — large 
bands of open-handed men, whose works prosper 
and whose homes rejoice, will stand before the 
world living witnesses that we are not given over 
to the keeping of a demon who pampers wrong 
and famishes goodness. 

" I plead for man's sake — that men may learn 
that commerce is benevolent. It is not more hurt- 
ful than wonderful how generally even good men 
look on commerce merely as an engine for fortune- 
making, and a field of battle for all the selfish 
passions. Even grave divines may be found call- 
ing commerce ' the god of this world,' with just 
the same propriety and truth as they, professing 
to quote Scripture, call money ' the root of all 
evil.' * Well, but is not commerce a hatefully 
selfish thing?' Is not weather a selfish thing? 
Both are appointed by Providence for the same 
end ; both perverted by man to the same abuse. 
For the threefold purpose of provisioning, cloth- 
ing, and adorning this world and its inhabitants, 
the Lord has instituted a great unconscious 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 83 

machinery of sky and sea, soil and air, and ap- 
pointed intelligent workers to watch its processes, 
and complete the result. Neither weather nor 
commerce separately will suffice for the provision- 
ing, clothing, and adorning of our w^orld. With- 
out the mechanical agents the intelligent workers 
are impotent; without the intelligent workers 
the mechanical agents revolve in vain. 

" The storms are made by the covetous under- 
writer the servants of his greed ; the blessed sun- 
beams are turned by the greedy corn-speculator 
into tools of gain ; the bloodthirsty buccaneer 
makes the genial breeze serve as charger in his 
murdering onset. Looking at these disgusting- 
perversions of the Lord's instruments, are we to 
forget that, above evil eyes and unholy hands, 
One is guiding the weather for the good of all ? 
And coming into commerce — the providential 
play of intelligent agents for our comfort — are we 
to look at the lower side, the motives of traders, 
and forget the higher side, the design and actual 
result wrought out by Providence ? It is like 
the web of a cunning weaver : on the lower side 
you find only tangled threads, on the upper only 
blooming flowers. Look at commerce as re- 



84 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

garded by the hearts of buyer and seller, and 
selfish mdeed is the scene ; look at it as designed, 
ay, as actually wrought out, by the Ruler above, 
and you see every man in a city provided by the 
hands of others with all things which earth can 
offer to his convenience, in such proportion as 
his means will command. Rise up, then, ye 
Christian men, ye who know a God and bless a 
Providence, rise up and testify that this com- 
merce, which busies your masses, is not a lawless 
scramble, but is a beneficent appointment where- 
by every one may become a co-worker with 
Heaven in plenishing and provisioning the 
homes of men ! Let all see that when well-won 
gains come into your hand, you have a joy in 
scattering them abroad, to spread temporal and 
eternal happiness among that race for whom all 
winds blow, and all markets are opened. 

" I plead for man's sake, that -practical benevo- 
lence may he increased. Of all sources of happi- 
ness in a community, none acts so gently and 
pervasively as a spirit of true benevolence. Noth- 
ing would so much assuage private griefs, or so 
greatly smooth the relations of class with class, 
as the general spread of that sacred brothei*-love, 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 85 

that true fellow-feeling, whicli breathes so sweetly 
in our Christian Scriptures. That widows may 
not weep unconsoled ; that orphans may not 
roam friendless ; that wayward men may not 
pass a lifetime within sound of church-bells with- 
out ever hearing inside their own door a word of 
loving exhortation ; that the poor may not be set 
against the rich by envy ; that the rich may not 
be estranged from the poor by contempt; that 
real heathens may not live and die in the heart 
of Christendom ; that nations of Pagans may not 
sit on and on in the darkness of their fathers ; 
in a word, that this cold world may be warmer, 
and this troubled race have more joy, open your 
hand and give ; for man's sake, give ! 

" I PLEAD FOR THE Gospel's SAKE, that it may 
he fitly represented. That is not its own word ; 
but one almost fears to use its own, it is so 
strong. *That ye may adorn the doctrine of 
God your Saviour in all things.' Adorn that 
doctrine ! See it so pure, so bright, lovely in the 
likeness of its Author, and then say where is the 
life that is to be to it, not a vail to dim its beauties, 
not a spot to make it seem faulty, but an oma- 



Ob MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

ment^ — ^what a jewel is to the brow of a fair 
woman, an attraction for eyes and admiration ! 

Where is the hfe that really adorns the Gospel ? 
Surely it is not that of a man who calls himself 
a Christian, and yet to w^hom no one will turn 
in his need, as to a certain friend, for body or 
for soul. Alas for that man from whose door a 
neighbor in distress instinctively turns away ; to 
whom collectors for any holy work never think 
of going ! O, who would rest under a roof upon 
which no man's blessing comes ? Not long ago 
one rich man was letting a splendid pew to 
another rich man, and, mistaking the character 
of his customer, he stated, among the many 
attractions of the place, this great attraction, — 
* And there are no charities ! ' Ah ! never sleep 
under that man's roof 1 

"The Gospel will be adorned only by men 
who, not in word and in tongue, but in deed and 
in truth, love their neighbor, body and soul ; — 
men in whom the character of Christ, to some 
extent, reappears, that character of love and 
self-sacrifice to which the glory of God and the 
salvation of man were the sole objects ; wealth, 
or ease, or pride, nothing. Aim, then, aim at 



MEETINa AT THE TABERNACLE. 87 

such a standard of beneficence as shall attract 
to the religion you profess the admiring eye of 
many, who before had seen in it no loveliness ! 
" I plead for the Gospel's sake, that it may he 
diffused. The Lord's commission is, that we '• go 
into all the world^ and preach the Gospel to 
every creature, ' ' To every creature ! ' Let us 
remember that injunction. While a human being 
lives to whom the good tidings of great joy have 
never been told, our commission is not executed. 
How much has been done already toward its 
execution ? Half the race of man, and more, are 
this day without preachers of the Gospel ! And 
even within Christian lands numbers of holy works, 
for which the need is reproachfully plain, remain 
undone, because the Church of God is not suf- 
ficiently self-denying to give the means. It is 
easy to sympathize with missions ; to applaud 
earnest speeches, and kindle with lively hymns. 
It is easy to feel a generous glow while we sing, 
in the words of Heber : — 

* Waft, waft, ye winds, the story, 

And you, ye waters, roll, 
Till, like a sea of glory. 

It spreads from pole to pole ! ' 



bo MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

" But listen ! the winds are sweeping, and have 
been sweeping from the beginning, over the peaks 
of the Himalaya and on the shores of Lake Tsad. 
Now it is the rustle of the breeze, now the war 
of the tempest; but listen! Does either sound 
on the ear of the heathen the name ' Jesus ? ' 
The waves are rolling, and from the beginning 
have been roUing, on the shores of Feejee and 
of Japan; but does either the gentle ripple, or 
the boom of the mighty wave, sound the word, 
' Mercy ? ' 

" JSTo ; if the story is to be told, it must be told 
by the voice of living men. And whence are the 
means to come, to send forth messengers to tell 
the tidings of grace ' to every creature ? ' Dr. 
Morgan, in his Essay, has said that some such 
change as was effected in science by the discovery 
of gravitation, or in mechanics by that of steam, 
would be effected in the powers of the Church 
for good, by the general adoption of the ob- 
servance for which we plead. And, whether we 
look at our wealthy Churches, or at our poorer 
ones, it is certain that were all our members but 
brought up even to the practice of giving a tenth, 
then would the ability of our Churches to flood 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 89 

the earth with Christian agencies be increased 
to the astonishment of mankind ; while our feeble 
Churches, though in a lower degree, sYOuld put 
on a new, and hitherto unheard of, might. 

" We are drawing near to the hour when we 
shall take flight from this shore for another. 
At whatsoever moment we depart, many other 
souls, from all lands, will be departing too. Who 
would wish that, in the flight of souls of which 
he will be one, the majority should be of those 
who had never heard of Jesus ? If this is not 
to be our case, if that ISTame is to sound on all 
ears, and to be invoked in all tongues, up and be 
earnest ! Spare not your goods, that the poor in 
soul may be rich at last. 

"I plead — reverently it must be said — for 
THE Lord's sake. It is true that all idea of 
giving a benefit to him is forever excluded. ' Is it 
any gain to him that thou makest thy ways per- 
fect ? ' The sun he has set in our firmament, has 
rejoiced our world fi'om Adam until now. On him 
all its beauty and its hfe depend. Now that he is 
hidden, the rose has no blush, the meadow no 
green, the lily no whiteness ; a cheerless gloom 



90 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

reduces them all to sameness. To-morrow when he 
reappears, all the beauties of the landscape will 
come forth anew. Suppose that then we were 
all seized with an impulse of admiration, and 
desired to show how mucix we valued his services 
to man ; not all the powers of our race could send 
him up a ray to make him grander. 

"He is the emblem of his Maker. In one 
eternal outflood benefits stream fi'om him upon 
his creatures. Life, joy, redemption, — all come 
from him. After ages of daily debt, were all 
our race this moment seized with a passion of 
gratitude, and did every human heart ask, ' What 
shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits ? ' 
then, though every bosom throbbed, and every 
hand were raised, we could not add one ray to 
his glory, one step to the elevation of his throne, 
one hair-breadth to the extent of his dominions, 
or one moment to the duration of his reign. 
Inhabiting eternity, he sits ' in the high and holy 
place,' as far above our power to benefit as to injure 
him, equally incapable of accession and decay. 

" Yet he intrusts to us interests that are dear 
to him ; and, therefore, — 

" I plead for the Lord's sake, that his image 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 91 

may he worthily reflected. The inanimate works 
of his hand tell much of his strength and skill ; 
the lower animals much of his wisdom to contrive 
and his might to control : but all this they tell 
not to themselves, but to their superior, man. 
They, however, are but works of his, not chil- 
dren showing his image, or capable of being 
' partakers of the divine nature. ' From them, 
man can learn nothino- as to his Maker's mind 

o 

on moral questions, on the points whereupon the 
deepest anxieties of the conscience turn, — right 
and wrong, justice, pardon, judgTnent, and the 
future. It is only through man that his fellow- 
man can see the image of God, — man, that 
wonderful creature, whose complex nature unites 
the lowest to the highest worlds, bringing matter, 
animal and spirit, into one being, — a being who, 
on one extreme, is equal with the clod, and, on 
the other, by the communing of the spirit reaches 
to the throne of the Highest. In him, and in 
him alone, the image of the holy God may be 
so reflected, that men here shall learn to * glorify 
their Father who is in heaven. ' 

"But how does he reflect this image who, 
professing to be a child of God. is vet kno\\Ti to 



92 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

delight in holding and in storing, but to feel a 
pain in giving ? Nothing can be more strictly- 
opposite to the divine nature than this. The 
unceasing action of that nature is to pour out 
unrequited bounties. Return or gain it knows 
not; and so does it delight in bounty, that no 
man gives to another in the Lord's name but 
he counts the deed as done to himself. Blessed 
is that human being in whose goodness some mind 
first discerns glimpses of the goodness of God ! 
" I plead for the Lord's sake, that his claims 
may he vindicated, I have already said, that 
many who are willing to look upon him as God 
of the world to come, feel as if this world's 
property was not so directly his and under his 
hand. For God's glory and for man's rest, it is 
needful that all be taught that the gold and silver, 
the harvest's yield, flocks, herds, and fisheries, 
are all his creatures and his property ; that 
whatsoever man has in his hand, is there only in 
trust and stewardship, not created nor yet retained 
by his power ; that a Hand unseen can at any 
moment empty his hand, and a Mind unseen 
blight the fruit of a hfe's prudence by the mistake 
of a day. Go, then, and assert the Lord's claims ; 



MEETING AT THE TABERXACLE. 93 

go and teach man's stewardship, not in word, but 
in deed. Steadily devote the first-fruits of all 
wherewith you may be intrusted to holy uses. 
Let your daily actions say in your neighbors' 
ears, '• Freely ye have received, freely give ! " 

*' I plead for the Lord's sake, that his due 
praise may he rendered. In speaking of the 
efiect of Christian liberality, St. Paul tells us that 
it does not stop at those who are benefited, but 
passes on, in a certain sense, to the Lord him- 
self, — • abounds by many thanksginngs to God.' 
To abound does not mean to suffice, but to more 
than suffice ; not to fill a vessel, but to wave 
out, or overflow fi'om it. Thus, when an act of 
Christian goodness fills a suffering heart with 
joy, it not only thanks the human hand that 
comforts it, but overflows in the words, • Thank 
God r There is an ear, an open ear, which 
never closes to the cry of want; but when it 
listens from heaven to the children of men, to 
hear if there be any that thank God, often it Hstens 
in vain, — often hears praises for the creature, 
murmurs and blasphemies for the Creator. O, 
would you count it a little thing, if, through 
your own deeds, that ear, ever and anon, heard 



94 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

a fervent ' Thank God V Of all the hands that 
make melody, none raises such music as his 
whose touch on the heart-keys of the despairing 
changes a murmur into a thrilling * Thank God !' 
Give, then, freely give, that some poor man who 
was ready to think that charity was dead on earth, 
and mercy in heaven, may bless you ; and, feel- 
ing that it was God who sent you to his side, 
may cry, ' Thank God !' Give, freely give, that 
the sons of heathen fathers, of cannibals and 
demon- worshipers, may make scenes which have 
echoed only to whoop, or yell, or din of orgies, 
resound with the Christian ' Praise God !' 

" I PLEAD FOR YOUR OWN SAKE, that you may 
prosper. The habit of statedly giving first-fruits 
of all you receive, tends to prosperity, by the 
double force of a natural means and a divine 
blessing. As a natural means, it works by pro- 
moting order and economy. One reason why 
many tradesmen fail is, that they do not in due 
time, and with sufficient frequency, ascertain 
precisely where they are. He who is determined 
that all his increase shall pay its first-fruits to 
the glory of his Saviour, must ascertain what 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 95 

that increase is. Again, one reason why many 
persons of fixed income are miserably before 
their means is, because they have never carefully 
apportioned to each branch of their expenditure 
its due share of their income. Were one portion 
held sacred, on which no claim whatever should 
touch, an efficient check would be set up against 
random living. 

" The habits of order and economy thus acquii-ed 
would work together with the blessing which is 
assured to him who honors the Lord with the 
first-fruits of all his increase. That a man living 
steadily up to this principle will prosper, I have 
no manner of doubt. The very night before 
I left London, I asked a valued friend of mine 
who had adopted the principle of giving away a 
tenth in early life, and whom the prospering 
hand of God had raised from humble beginnings 
to a position of great and valuable influence, if he 
ever knew a case in which a man had set out on 
that principle, and persevered in it, and then 
failed in life. He answered, ' Not one.' 

" Worldly men are often led to doubt whether 
a blessing does attend the labor of a pious man ; 
for they see men who profess religion suddenly 



96 MEETING AT THE TABERKACLE. 

brought down. But they must ask whether 
these men have been faithful to their religion. 
It often happens that one who begins life well, 
and is liberal while he has little, yields to that 
fatal tendency which is strong in all to love 
money in proportion as it increases. As they 
become richer in hand, they become poorer in 
heart. As they acquire more they give less. 
Only the other day I heard of a miserable 
creature, who is what we call a ve^y rich man^ 
who, when applied to in a very urgent case 
by two ministers for a family m need, did at last 
promise five shillings. But meeting one of the 
ministers afterward, he told him he found he 
could not give it; for he had so many houses, 
and had now to pay an increased tax, and that 
he could not spare so much. Ah ! how such 
copper souls are to be pitied ! But, alas ! these 
cases only represent a large class. And is it to 
be wondered at, that if religious men thus allow 
gold to choke up the springs of feeling, the Lord 
should smite them ? You worldly men, do not 
judge by such cases ! These men were false to 
their religion, and it is fitting that a blight 
should overtake them : — indeed, that blight may 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 9 t 

be their salvation. But he who steadfastly sets 
apart for the Lord the first portion of all his 
gains, checks his love of money on the threshold ; 
and by increasing the proportion as his gains 
increase, he checks the terrible bent to a progress- 
ive love of it ; so that it is safe for himself, and 
good for the Church, that he should prosper. 
But how can he prosper who gives a tenth of 
little, but, when Providence makes it much, 
thinks his tenth too much to give ? Even to 
that depth of baseness can our poor nature go. 
Such men, not only in substance, but in very 
form, 'rob God,' and may be met by him with 
that stark and frightful charge. And if it may 
be said of other wrongful modes of getting 
wealth, surely it may of this : ' As a partridge 
sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not, so he 
that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave 
them in the midst of his days, and at his end 
shall be a fool.' 

" I plead for your own sake, that you may es- 
cape the curse of a carnal mind. It is possible 
for a man so to drown his spiritual powers in 
sordid passion, that the soul within him ceases to 
have any action but for concerns of the market. 
5 



98 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

Of its high faculties he cannot rob it : it is, and it 
will be a soul, witb tbe inherent lights and forces 
of a soul. But all these he presses into the igno- 
ble service of pelf-gathering. It still has its 
judgment, capable of deep and holy themes ; 
but this is kept ever poring upon problems lying 
within the two columns, dollars and cents. It 
has its imagination ; but this, instead of taking 
flights to a better country, only dwells on more 
gold, more houses, more land, more state. It 
has its fear ; but it forgets all things really fear- 
ful, and shudders at nothing except losses. And 
even its hope, though unquenchable, is chained 
down from every heavenward fiightj and per- 
mitted to aspire no higher than money ! Thus 
the poor soul is totally shut out from its native 
air, and the whole man sinks into a machine— a 
most wonderful and elaborate machine, worked 
by spirit-power, for the single use of scraping, 
scraping, scraping gold ! 

"There are hundreds of souls just like that; 
and if you would not have your soul degraded 
into mere spirit-power for working a gold-rake, 
spring up, and, appealing for help to the Spirit 
who is over all, go and teach your hands to do 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 99 

works of generosity instead of teaching your soul 
to do works of pelf. 

" I plead for your own sake, that you may 
increase in purity and heavenliness of mind. It 
was our Redeemer who first showed the way to 
make our money a tie to eternal hopes, and even 
a means of inclining our affections toward the 
inheritance of the saints in light. He said : 
' Sell that ye have, and give alms ; provide your- 
selves bags which wax not old,' (is not this what 
you would covet ? ' bays which wax not old ?') 
* a treasure in the heavens, where no thief ap- 
proacheth, nor moth corrupteth.' Now, mark 
the philosophy of this : ^ I^or luhere your treasure 
is, there will your heart he also.'' So that, by 
gradually laying up your treasure in heaven, 
your heart will gradually follow it there ; and 
thus money, which some treat as capable only of 
being a bond and a burden, may become to you 
a connecting wire with the Throne of retributions, 
and a stimulant to hope for ' the resurrection of the 
just' A farmer who rejoices to see a full barn, 
and also to receive in market the price of his crops, 
yet foregoes the market, and reduces the store in 
his barn, casts away his precious grain out of his 



100 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

hand, out of his sight, and leaves it buried, lost as 
to immediate return, trusting it wholly to the 
bosom of earth and the eye of Heaven. What 
effect does this portion of his treasure produce 
upon him ? It turns his thoughts away from the 
barn, from the market, from the pride of the one 
and the gold of the other. It leads his eye often 
up to the heavens, and his thoughts forward to 
the coming harvest-day. 

" Go, then, and sow, not sparingly, but bounti- 
fully. Foregoing the proud store, foregoing the 
present recompense, cast your treasure out of 
your grasp, out of your sight ; cast it with a broad 
hand and a glad heart ; leave it there unseen, in 
the soil of eternity, and under the suns of heaven ; 
even here the fruit will be, that, by degrees, your 
mind will set itself more strongly on the joys that 
never wane : and when the harvest day sets in? 
how many will be fain that they had sowed as you ! 

" I plead for your own sake, that you may 
have some good of your money ^ even to eternity. 
In the passage just referred to our Eedeemer 
shows how we may, by a heavenly use of earthly 
goods, lay up treasure in heaven. An apostle 
tells us of another treasure which, bv means of 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 101 

money, we may ' heap together for the last days.' 
But this is a treasure of ' miseries that shall come 
u^Don you.' He who, to amass wealth, keeps 
back the laborer's hire, or falls into other ' fraud,' 
— surely not excepting the fraud which deprives 
the Lord of the beneficent use of his own gifts — 
is, in heaping up money for this world, heaping 
up ' treasure for the last days.' While the gold 
and silver distributed for the Lord's sake, to 
benefit the souls and the bodies of men, will all 
be found turned into incorruptible treasure ' at 
the resurrection of the just ;' this gold and silver, 
which no thank-offerings hallowed, and no poor 
man blessed, on which the eye of the needy 
looked wistfully, and for which the works of 
God's Church appealed in vain, — ^this, too, will 
reappear ; its \rust shall he a witness against 
yoii^ and shall eat your flesh as it were fire,'' 
This, O money-lover, is the way in which you 
have heaped treasure ' together for the last days !' 
" * O, I have not been selfish ! It is not for 
myself I have got something together. I know 
I must leave it. It is for my children I have 
saved.' Well, perhaps it would have been a 
blessing to your children had they been left just 



102 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

with the means of honorably starting in life, the 
rest depending, under God, on their own conduct. 
Perhaps the stores you have painfully gathered 
will breed contentions over your grave, and then 
hurry your children to folly and to sin — ay, per- 
haps to poverty. 

" You have saved for your children ! We are 
ready to admit that, in this, if moderately done, 
you are a public benefactor : for he who finds a 
family competing with the poor in the labor 
market, and leaves it in a condition to employ 
them instead of competing with them, does a 
general service. But while you have been saving 
for your children, what have you saved for your- 
self ? In a week your will may be read ; and is 
it possible that all the savings of your hfe are 
invested where they will then oe in the hands of 
others, and nothing invested where it will come 
to account for you ? As with our life, so with 
our money : he that saveth his money shall lose 
it; and he who, for the Lord's sake and the 
Gospel's sake, loses his wealth shall find it. The 
only money we save for ourselves is what we 
give to the Lord. 

" This sentiment I found quaintly expressed on 



MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 103 

an old monument in the parish church of Leek, 
Staffordshire, England : — 

' As I was, so be ye ; 
As I am, ye shall be ; 
What I gave, that I have ; 
What I spent, that I had. 
Thus I end all my eost : 
What I left, that I lost. ' 

" From the moment you depart hence, (and how 
long is that moment away ?) not one farthing of 
all you ever handled will remain to you, except 
that which you freely gave away. When all the 
rest is in the hands of others, this will abide for 
you, and at the great day will be apportioned to 
you, in new forms, and with wondrous increase, 
before all eyes that ever counted gold, or ever 
melted with benevolence. Then, if you would 
save anything for .yourself, if you would have 
any enjoyment from your possessions beyond this 
uncertain life, go and ' put on Christ :' let your 
own character disappear under his — your own 
modes of judging and acting give place to his. 
Give yourself first to him, and then to the Church, 
and the good works the Church has to do ; and 



104 MEETING AT THE TABERNACLE. 

then shall jou ' lay up in store against the time 
to come.' 

" ^Ah, but I should not like to die poor ! ' Not 
like to die poor ! For my part I should wish to 
die rich. Who dies rich ? He who, whether 
he leaves much, or little, or nothing behind him, 
has treasure laid up in heaven. He dies rich. 
Who dies poor ? He who, whatever he leaves 
behind him, has nothing laid up before him. 
Me dies poor.''^ 



CHRIST SAYING OTHERS AND SACRIFICING 
HIMSELF* 

** He saved others, himself he cannot saye.^^ — ^Matt. 
xxvii, 42. 

It was on a Friday morning, about nine o'clock. 
There was a movement among the people of 
Jerusalem ; they thronged toward a rising 
gi'ound where there were three crosses. The 
crowd is not composed of the sight-seers who 
flock to every execution, but included all classes, 
even the noble and the devout. It is manifest 
that the interest centers on a cross which stands 
between the other two, for all eyes turn to that 
face, so unlike the faces which usually die in 
shame upon it. Some look with blank amaze- 
ment, some with ill-dissembled grief, some with 
frank exultation, some with a strange mixture of 
curiosity and fear. One group in the distance, 

^ Sermon delivered at Mulberry-street M. E. Church, 
N. Y., December 2. 1855. 



106 CHRIST SAVING OTHERS 

composed chiefly of women, direct toward it 
looks which it would be hard to interpret — all 
the tenderness of affection, all the reverence of 
worship, all the anguish natural in the presence 
of a dying friend, all the awe which befits the 
presence of our God. 

Some, advancing from the crowd, come close 
up to that cross, and lifting an angry eye to the 
sufferer, wag their heads and say, "Thou that 
destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three 
days, save thyself and come down from the 
cross." But he remains upon the cross with 
every appearance of helplessness. Then come 
forward men of educated brow and distinguished 
attire, "the chief priests, with the scribes and 
elders ;" the first men, in fact, of the nation, and 
they too, looking up to that face which is 
foreshowing death, begin to mock, " He saved 
others, himself he cannot save." These words, 
then, are the utterance of the chiefs of the Jewish 
nation at the foot of the cross. They seem to 
contain an unintentional testimony to Christ, a 
premature triumph over him, an unconscious 
statement of the principle on which he died, and 
a suggestion of an example for his followers. 



AND SACRIFICING HIMSELF. 107 

I. An UNINTENTIONAL TESTIMONY TO ChRIST. 

" He saved others !" When they opened their 
hps it was with the intention of mocking only ; 
but the recollection of wonders done by him 
over whom they were exulting rushed upon 
them. It was in this very Jerusalem that he 
had restored the impotent man and opened the 
eyes of the blind ; it was in Bethany, close by, 
that he had called up Lazarus even from the 
grave; and throughout the regions of Galilee 
3very village resounded with the accounts of 
deliverances which he had wrought. The sight of 
his apparent helplessness brings all this rushing 
into their minds, and they said, "He saved others !" 
Thus, while intending to mock him, their first 
words testify to his power and goodness. 

There was one standing near into whose 
heart these words would sink with an over- 
whelming weight of meaning — Mary Magdalene. 
She would think upon the first time when that 
eye, now so full of sorrow, lighted upon her. 
Then she was possessed of seven devils, her body 
distorted, her mind deranged, her soul polluted, 
— a fright to others, a horror to herself, life a 
torment, death a hell. But those lips which are 



108 CHRIST SAVING OTHERS 

there so pale spoke a word, an easy word, and 
O, what a deliverance did that word bring ! Sud- 
denly she was another being, her body healed, her 
mind restored, her soul regenerated, life a glad- 
ness, death an immortality ; and from that day 
she has followed her Redeemer's steps in health, 
hoHness, and joy ! How that breast will echo 
and reecho the words, " He saved others !" 

And some were there, closing round that cross, 
in whose souls the words of the chief priests would 
awaken the echoes of a deeper meaning than 
even in that of Mary Magdalene — Abel, who so 
long ago offered up the spotless lamb ; Abraham, 
who stood by the altar on which his Isaac lay ; 
Moses, who slew the paschal lamb and sprinkled 
the blood ; Aaron, who made atonement for the 
people, and went within the vail to plead ; David, 
who sang, " They part my garments among 
them, and cast lots upon my vesture ; " Isaiah, 
who cried, " he hath poured out his soul uuto 
death : and he was numbered with the transgress- 
ors, and he bare the sin of many, and made 
intercession for the transgressors," — all these had 
been children of sinful Adam, themselves sinners 
too, had done evil deeds, and left holy deeds 



AND SACRIFICING HIMSELF. 109 

undone, yet had they all been borne to a glorious 
place of rest where between them and all evil 
was a great gulf fixed which no foe, no tempta- 
tion, could pass, but beyond which lay the dark- 
ness wherein they must have dwelt had none 
been found to save them. They, with the light 
of Paradise to disclose the meaning of the words, 
would reecho, " He saved others !" 

IL A PREMATURE TRIUMPH OVER HIM. 

'^ Himself he cannot save !" These words give 
the impression that even when they saw him on 
the cross they were not quite at ease. They had 
long plotted to bring him to that situation ; but 
no sooner do they see him there than, recollecting 
what he had done for others, they begin to fear 
that he may do some equal wonder for himself 
He who healed the living and raised the dead, — 
can he not come down from the cross ? Should 
he do so, their whole project would be defeated 
with shame. 

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilder- 
ness so is he hfted up. "Aha ! so would we 
have it !" is the cry of his persecutors ; yet their 
guilty souls are touched with the fear that after 



110 CHRIST SAVING- OTHERS 

all he may come down. How slowly do the 
moments of that first hour pass,— slowly to the 
sufferer; slowly to his disciples, who watch in 
the distance ; and perhaps more slowly still to the 
murderers, whose hearts are trembling lest that 
pierced foot may step again upon the earth. 
But, wearily, wearily, the heavy moments pass 
away, each one noted by a faUing drop of blood, 
till a whole hour is gone. He enters, suffering, on 
the second hour : it too is slow ; but it too ends, 
all signs indicating that he is " stricken, smitten 
of God and afflicted." The third hour comes, 
and the grief of his soul grows deeper. Perhaps 
it is now that the crowd find courage to challenge 
him to come down. But the only answer made 
is by the gurgle of blood, and their exulting 
cry, " Himself he cannot save !" 

But lo ! just as the sun is high at noon, what 
gloom is that which falls upon the city, covering, in 
a moment, temple, fort, and palace, and settling 
awfully on the hill of crosses ? Is he yet about to 
work a prodigy ? How their hearts sink ! But 
when they recover power to look, still there is the 
drooping head, showing dimly through the dark- 
ness. And now, for three weary hours more, 



AND SACRIFICING HIMSELF. Ill 

amid those unnatural shades, do they watch the 
progress of his agony. Each moment seems to 
make the load of sorrow hea\^er, till at length a 
loud cry is heard, the earth quakes, the rocks 
rend, and their astonished eyes, rising to see if 
Elijah has come to dehver him, behold him hang- 
ing lifeless. Then they cry, ^' Himself he cannot 
save!" 

That night passed over Jerusalem like other 
nights ; the next morning rose hke other morn- 
ings. And as the chief priests and elders met 
each other at the temple, they felt that all was 
over, and said, without a fear, " Himself he can- 
not save I" The day passed, and they went to 
rest, untroubled by fears from the Nazarine. 
But what mean these soldiers, coming so early 
next morning with pale, bewildered looks? 
They are the men who were placed to guard the 
tomb, and they come to tell w^hat has been 
done. He is risen ! Heaven has sent down one 
of its brightest sons to roll the stone from his 
sepulcher ! He who had so meekly bowed to 
the slaughter, has walked forth in power from 
among the dead ! Ah ! they feared he would 
descend from the cross : but this is a worse 



112 CHRIST SAVING OTHERS 

confusion. He had before shown his author- 
ity over all that can befall man in life ; he 
now rises up arrayed as a conqueror even of 
death. 

How the news would send back in coldness to 
the heart of his enemies the hasty boast, " Himself 
he cannot save !" A shivering consciousness 
would now come over them., " That no man 
took his life from him, but that he laid it down 
of himself : for he had power to lay it down, and 
power to take it up again ;" that his hand, even 
at the moment it was spread out to be nailed to 
the tree, held in command powers which none 
could measure ; that as they stood and mocked 
before him, he was well able to smite them terri- 
bly ; that one glance of wrath from that eye would 
have consumed them and their city, as of old the 
fires burnt Gomorrah ; that one word from those 
lips, and the earth would have opened and swal- 
lowed them up, as of old the tents of Korah ; 
that had he but breathed one breath of anger, 
that whole multitude, gazing in living waves 
around the scene of crucifixion, would have sunk 
down silently and died hke the host of Sen- 
nacherib. 



AND SACRIFICING HIMSELF. 113 

III. Ax UNCONSCIOUS STATEMENT OF THE 

PRINCIPLES OF Christ's atonement, in offer- 
ing WHICH HE DIED. 

All admit that evil exists among us, and things 
are commonly done by men which ought never 
to be done in this universe, and wrong is famil- 
iar to human actions. But many think that it 
would be benevolent on the part of the divine 
Being to pass over this wrong without displeas- 
ure. Benevolent ! It would be a most desolat- 
ing cruelty. Suppose a father who ruled his 
house on the principle of treating right and 
wrong alike, could order and peace exipt in that 
home ? Suppose a city, the authorities of which 
declared that they would not punish any deed 
however e\al, would you not flee from that city ? 
Suppose a kingdom, whose government pro- 
claimed that all offenders might count upon im- 
punity, would not all the good escape to some 
other shore? And to suppose a Ruler of all 
worlds who would not punish and put down 
wrong, wherever it arose, would be to suppose all 
worlds laid open to the everlasting inroads of 
trouble. 

But all the good regard it as a defense and a 



114 CHRIST SAVING OTHERS 

beneficence. And even offenders err in imagin- 
ing that they should gain by the suspension of all 
justice ; for, whatever they suffer from its decrees, 
they would suffer much more by unregulated 
ravages and universal violence. We always find 
one class of a population looking on justice as 
an enemy, and on its administration as a misfor- 
tune ; that is, the criminal class. 

The fact that we generally regard the divine 
Judge with dread, is clear proof that, in the 
dominion of the great King, we are the 
criminal population. We have all been doers of 
wrong, and we know it. If the Judge of all 
did not disapprove of much that we have done, 
he would not be just and good. In governing 
any community, one of the highest offices of good- 
ness is to punish offenses which arise. Benevo- 
lence as well as justice requires that the wrath of 
God should be revealed from heaven against the 
ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. But 
can that wrath be so revealed, as at the same 
time worthily to testify the everlasting hatred of 
the Good One against all iniquity, and yet to leave 
open a way whereby offending man may be 
restored to his favor? This question could not 



AND SACRIFICING HIMSELF. 115 

have been asked, nor could any answer have 
been found, but that the revealed doctrine of the 
atonement suggests the one and gives the other. 
We approach that sacred cross near which the 
high priests stood. They had all along been 
offering up sacrifices, none of which, as they were 
carefully told, could give pleasure to the Lord, 
but all of which pointed to the Lamb which was 
to come. The representatives of the sacrificial 
system cry, " He saved others, himself he cannot 
save !" We catch the words from their hps as 
the utterance of the old dispensation at the foot 
of the cross. We too declare, " He saved others, 
himself he cannot save !" " He was wounded 
for our transgressions, he was bruised for our in- 
iquities : and with his stripes we are healed." 
" He, without spot, the brightness of his Father's 
glory, and the express image of his person," 
took upon himself our offenses, that he might 
free us by the sacrifice of himself. In smiting 
Him, the Lord displayed far more displeasure 
than in undoing us. That one word, "Awake, 
sword against the Shepherd, smite the man thai 
is my fellow^l'' conveys untold depths of mean- 
ing ; and a sword lifted against a fellow is a proof 



116 CHRIST SAVING- OTHERS 

of displeasure far more awful than if a world 
of dependants were depopulated with a sweep, 
which might be instantly repeopled by a creation. 
Our Saviour, then, having presented himself, 
that upon his own person the display of the 
Father's wrath against sin might take effect, 
had he saved himself he could not have saved 
others. Had he withdrawn from that stroke, 
none of us could plead for pardon on the ground 
that due displeasure had been already marked 
against our sin. On the contrary, each of us 
must stand in his offenses before the all-right- 
eous Judge, — each without atonement, without 
Mediator, without peace-offering, — to receive, upon 
his own head, that precise measure of the wrath 
of God which our evil acts had merited. 

IV. An example for our imitation. 

When we look abroad in the world we con- 
stantly find two principles at work, the one 
fruitful of happiness, the other of suffering — Love 
and Self; the first thinking of others, the second 
thinking of self only ; the one ever giving, the 
other ever griping ; the one rejoicing to diffuse 
advantages, the other to absorb them ; tlie one 



AND SACRIFICING HIMSELF. 11 Y 

ready to sacrifice self for the benefit of our neigh- 
bor, and the other ready to sacrifice our neigh- 
bor for the benefit of self. Here we find one 
who is sick, poor, and a stranger; but he is 
visited and relieved. Whence is this? From 
the charity which seeketh not her own. Here is 
one rejoicing that the ruin he feared has been 
turned aside, and a friend has opened to him new 
hopes for life. Whence came his deliverance ? 
From the charity which seeketh not her own. 
Here are poor children whom no kindred tend 
or instruct ; but by the hands of strangers they 
are led to knowledge, and pointed the way of 
virtue and honor. Whence this light? From 
the charity which seeketh not her own. Here 
are ancient men and women whose old age is 
forlorn — no son to lead them, no daughter to 
minister unto them, no store laid up for the day 
of need ; but by other hands they are blest with 
a roof, a bed, and food, and raiment ; and whence 
is this? Even from the charity that seeketh not 
her own. Thus go around the earth, and where- 
ever you find misery assuaged, or dark tribes 
passing from barbarism to the gentler life of 
luxury, you will trace back all the actions which 



118 CHRIST SAVING OTHERS 

produce the good to tlie one same motive — the 
love which seeketh not her own ! 

On the other hand, here you find a painful 
eye, and a voice passionate with a sense of 
wrong. Why ? Because self had an opportunity 
of gain, and went coldly on to its purpose, though 
knowing its ruinous loss to another. Here 
we find a child whose father left him wherewithal 
to live, but he is pennyless now. Why ? Be- 
cause self coveted the orphan's store, and dis- 
regarded his rights. Here we find a poor 
creature who once was harmless and cheerful, 
but now she walks the streets blackened for 
life, a wretch, a poison, and a tempter. Why ? 
Because self had a lust to indulge, and pressed 
on to its purpose though another must be 
degraded. Here we find a new-born infant 
murdered. Why ? Because self had a shame to 
cover. And so, starting from individual or family 
wrongs, pass up even to those which afflict a 
nation, and we will find them chiefly traceable 
to a disregard of others and the undue regard 
of self. Apart from the sighs and tears which 
are directly caused by sickness and death, there 
are comparatively few, of all that are seen in our 



AND SACRIFICING HIMSELF. 119 

mourning world, which do not spring from the 
bitter fountain of self. 

Whence, then, do these two opposite prin- 
ciples take their origin ? This love, which 
moves about among our suffering race like a 
good angel, Hghtening our darkness, has no 
evidence of earthly origin. It is not like our 
own hearts. It is not like the world. Such 
sweet waters have not their source in man's embit- 
tered breast. It is not breathed from nature 
upon the soul of unsophisticated man ; for where 
man has been longest in keeping of nature alone, 
his life is the hardest, and his code the most 
bloody. We turn to a better race than our 
own. True, between us and those children of our 
Father who have kept their first estate, the dis- 
tance is great ; but, in the light of Gospel words, 
we see a ladder cast across the gulf which sepa- 
rates their land from ours, and on it the angels of 
God are ascending and descending, each one, as 
he comes down, bearing some errand of good- 
ness that he may minister to men ; each, as he 
ascends, bearing some good tidings of a sinner 
repenting of his sins. They, then, dehght in the 
service and in the welfare of others. Holv 



120 CHRIST SAVING OTHERS 

angels ! does this charity begin with you ? 
"Not with us!" they cry^^JSTot with us!" and 
up and up are we led by the ascending voices — 
" Not with us," until we stand full in the pres- 
ence of the blessed, and all the powers which 
surround his throne cry, "Love is of God, and 
he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and 
God in him ; for God is love." 

God never seeks, but ever gives. It is the 
divine nature to communicate. It is the impulse 
of a fountain to pour forth. He has nothing to 
gain for himself. He has all things to bestow. 
The principle of love is of the very essence of his 
moral nature. There we see its origin, and in 
the person of our SaWour Jesus its full, expressive 
embodiment. In him are vested all powers, yet 
they create no grandeur for himself, but are moved 
only to bless others. His life is one continued 
act of self-debasement, and finds a life — meet, but 
amazing conclusion — in the act wherein he saves 
others by the sacrifice of himself. 

But when we find the principle of love origi- 
nating in the divine being, and embodied in the 
Lord Jesus, we naturally learn to seek the foun- 
tain and embodiment of the power of lova 



AND SACRIFICING HIMSELF. 121 

There is a dark spirit who goes about seeking 
triumphs for himself in the undoing of others. 
Once he was bright, an angel among angels, a 
prince before God. He then knew and kept 
those two great laws which are equally the laws 
c : heaven and of earth, of angels and of men, viz. : 
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." Had he 
abode in the law of love, up to this hour he 
would have been blessed. But departing from 
the first commandment, he sought to exalt him- 
self independently of God ; departing from the 
second, he sought to exalt himself above his fel- 
lows. Thus pursuit of self begun : love, which 
seeketh not her own, which desires to give, to 
help, and to bless, was lost, and another nature 
— a nature which, instead of regarding the uni- 
verse as a field for doing good, regards it as a 
theater of self-advancement — took its place. And 
now we see that fearful being, embodying the 
principle which is opposed to love, perpetually 
ruining others for the exaltation of himself. 

To many the idea of Satan appears too fearful 
to be true. It is very fearful, but it is very 
natural. The image of that bad being is reflected 



122 CHRIST SAVING OTHERS 

in bad men. Do we not constantly see that self- 
ishness, while in hope, endeavors to subordinate 
others to its own glory ; and when in discomfiture, 
endeavors to bring all down to share its over- 
throw ? 

Here, then, are two essentially opposite princi- 
ples on which to live : the one the pursuit of 
self at the cost of our neighbor, the other the 
sacrifice of self for the good of others. In Christ 
the one principle is embodied, in Satan the other. 
And when the Lord Jesus saved others by the 
sacrifice of himself, he left us an example, that 
we should tread in his steps. He has laid that 
principle of his atonement at the base of all 
effectual efibrts for the salvation of mankind. 
He who will not sacrifice himself will never do 
much toward saving others, not even in matters 
of temporal import, much less in those which re- 
late to things eternal. A vessel is ashore ; men 
are clinging to the wreck ; the waves rush over 
them ; death is making haste; yet they may still 
be saved ! But who can save them ? He that 
considers self ? No ; he may shiver on the 
beach, or may make himself warm by his own 
hearth, but he can have no share in saving those 



AND SACRIFICING HIMSELF. 123 

poor men. Who, then, can save them ? Only- 
he who forgets self, who risks self, who exposes 
self to the winds and to the waves, and is ready 
rather to let himself perish than to lose the possi- 
bility of saving some. 

Again, a house is on fire; a child is within 
that room round which the flames are closing. 
Who can save it ? The man who thinks of him- 
self? O no ! none but one who is wilhng to put 
self to the risk of the flames rather than that 
little one should perish. 

This principle lies at the root of all serious at- 
tempts to promote human welfare. You can 
achieve nothing considerable for the benefit of 
mankind without first putting self in danger. 
The abnegation of self from consideration for 
othei-s forms the true basis of all the little ameni- 
ties whereon the ordinary comfort of society de- 
pends ; and rising in degree, as the nature of the 
interest at stake lies, it is found in all the weighty 
claims of patriotic service, and in its highest form 
in the efi'orts which the Christian is called to 
make for the salvation of souls from death. He 
who is not ready to touch the work wherein 
Christ loved to labor with the same spirit which 



124 CHRIST SAVING OTHERS 

he showed, will touch it with unhallowed hand. 
If you are bent on consulting self, hold aloof from 
the scene where a whole shipwrecked race is 
foundering. This is no case for measured efforts 
and dainty compassion. If you come to the 
rescue at all, come in earnest, prepared to sink in 
struggling to save. When the great Lord of 
glory laid his own holy hand to this work it was 
not with an easy, self-considering touch, but with 
the patient force of one who takes up a burden 
under which he is prepared to fall. When that 
burden bowed him, he did not cast it off; when 
it bore hard and bruised him, he held it still ; 
when it became crushing, he yet held it ; and, 
rather than let it roll upon us, bore it in his own 
body, even unto death. He saved others, him- 
self he could not save. And if we would save 
others, ourselves we cannot save. 

This doctrine is hard to flesh and blood. We 
are ready to think that such a principle must 
strike away from virtue all the supports of joy, 
and leave us, in doing good, without any prospect 
but wretchedness. Were it so, even then the 
path of right would be the path to follow in spite 
of all imaginable sacrifices. Better do good and 



AND SACRIFICING HIMSELF. 125 

be sorrowful tlian do evil and never know trouble. 
But however this doctrine of self-sacrifice may at 
first appear, does it really prove to be the way to 
misery, and its opposite the way to peace? In 
your life there have been moments which you 
would not hke to live over again — scenes which 
are never recalled to your memory without being 
unwelcome, and which you thank no one for 
alluding to. What are those moments and those 
scenes ? Select such as are the most painful to 
think upon ; and are they not precisely those in 
which you most followed the leading of your own 
desires or interests at the moment, and most dis- 
regarded those of others ? There have also been 
moments in your life which you would not object 
to live over again— scenes which are welcome to 
return to memory whenever they will, and which 
any one gives pleasure by calhng to mind. 
What are those moments and scenes? Are 
they not precisely those in which you most for- 
got your own feelings or interests in doing good 
to another ? In a family that member who seeks 
least for himself and is most alive to the claims 
of all around him is invariably the most beloved 
and the most happy. In general society the 



126 CHRIST SAVING OTHERS 

griping, selfish man, as he advances in life, makes 
constant progress in isolation from mankind, and 
cold joylessness of heart, even though the success 
of his selfishness may surround him with treasure 
or distinctions ; but the man who lives to do 
good is constantly gaining a larger share of affec- 
tion, and growing in joy fulness of heart. In 
public services a selfish course ever stains the 
brightest talents, and only he who is above selfish 
end wins enduring honor. In all this we may 
see a faint reflection of that which meets us in full 
force when we come to look at the mission of the 
Church of God, Then he who follows his own 
ends must ever be a barren tree ; he only who 
learns the lesson of the cross and seeks the salva- 
tion of sinners, at all risks, can share in that 
highest of all joys, the Redeemer's joy in bring- 
ing sons to glory. 

In Judas we see one who, for his own gain, 
sacrifices his Master ; and 0, how dreadful is the 
sequel! in Peter, one who, for his own protec- 
tion, denies his Master — an act of selfishness 
which cost him bitter grief and shame, and has 
left a dark shade upon his great name ; in Paul 
one who counted not his life dear to him, and so 



AND SACRIFICING- HIMSELF. 12Y 

exposed himself that his life was a dying daily : 
yet this path of self-sacrifice ever led on to new 
spheres of usefulness and new depths of consola- 
tion, and finally placed his name among the high- 
est summits of human renown, and made it more 
powerful for good than perhaps the name of any 
other mere man, gaining, as it does, an increase 
of power every year, becoming known in new 
languages and influencing the hearts of new 
tribes, and ever being recalled by the saint and 
the missionary when they would nerve them- 
selves to great deeds of goodness. But it is in 
the two beings who off'er us the most perfect em- 
bodiment of self and of love that we also behold 
the perfect display of the end to which these 
principles work. Satan disturbing heaven to 
advance himself, desolating earth to level others 
to himself, dwells in continual torment, and will 
at last be overthrown in shame, and woe, and 
bondage — the lowest and the most accursed of 
all beings that ever Hved. Jesus, who left heaven 
to humihate himself —who blesses earth by off'er- 
ing up himself — now sits at the right hand of 
God; from earth the merciful, the just, the 
saintly, send up adorations unto him ; the poor 



128 CHRIST SAVING OTHERS 

use his name as their best plea, and the good 
give to that name the praise of all their good- 
ness ; while in yonder better world he is exalted 
above all power, and dominion, and every name 
that is named ; and yet, in the great day that is 
to come, further exaltation awaits him, when 
every knee shall bow and every tongue confess, 
and crowns and glories unutterable shall adorn 
that head which bowed down upon the tree. 

Let us, then, draw nigh, by faith, to the cross 
of Christ ; not only to gain thoughts, principles, 
emotions, but especially to gain power. Looking 
upon that cross, it is easy for us to see that 
selfishness ought to be abhorred, and that love be 
taken as our permanent motive. But let none 
think that his heart is so easily won from self 
that he only needs to be taught how wrong it is 
to follow it, and thenceforth his life will be all 
goodness. We may know our duty without 
even being disposed to do it ; we may be dis- 
posed to do it, and yet be so weak that the evil 
overcomes us. We need not only instruction, 
but power. That power is to be found in wait- 
ing prayerfully, trustfully, at the foot of the 
cross. Let our mind's eye dwell upon the scene. 



AND SACRIFICING HIMSELF. 129 

Behold Him, how much he sacrifices and how 
much he endures ! behold the unspeakable glory 
which follows this sacrifice; and ask him to 
make us to taste the fellowship of his sufferings, 
to put that mind in us which was also in him. 
Wait, ponder, contemplate, pray, and stay long 
by that cross rather than go unblest. He will 
breathe his mind into your mind, he will form his 
character in your heart, he will possess you with 
his own spirit, and move you with his motives, till 
your natural impulses are vanquished by impulses 
from him, and your soul will be a new creature, 
like Jesus, loving as he also loved. 



ADDRESS IN BEHALF OF IRELAND. 

When nature formed the Eastern continent, she 
threw out two beautiful islands, as if she designed 
them to be its gardens. It is singular that these 
islands, so like in situation, should be so diverse 
in the character of their populations. Not long 
since Cicero said Britons were too stupid to be 
slaves. Only twenty lifetimes have passed since 
then, and now an Englishman can look on his 
native land with high gratification — can see her 
culture, power, and wealth — can see his countiy- 
men everywhere — see them in the United States, 
in Canada, in Australia, building up new nations. 
A Welshman, too, though separated fi'om En- 
gland by language, and excluded from her litera- 
ture, is not ashamed to be compared with 
his English neighbor. And Scotland, the land 
of heaths and rocks, though looking as if nature 
made it to be the land of poverty, has an agricul- 
ture inferior to no other place on earth ; her 



132 ADDRESS IN BEHALF OF IRELAND. 

children are educated ; and no land has more 
romantic recollections in its history than she. 

But there is Ireland, her mountains are taller, 
her lakes lovelier, her rivers longer and finer, 
her cattle teem more plentifully, her mines are 
equal, her bays and harbors superior, her climate 
more genial ; yet while England is known, 
honored, and regarded, Ireland is despised, and 
known chiefly as the land of poverty and sorrow. 
Her sons are hewers of wood and drawers of 
water. 

Whence this difference ? Why is it so ? Let 
the difference between the counties of Ireland 
answer. A few years since in Connaught 19 per 
cent, of the population were paupers, in Munster 
14 per cent., Leinster 7 per cent., Ulster 3 per 
cent. ; yet Ulster is the most favored by nature. 
All other things were shown to correspond in the 
outward appearance of the country and its im- 
provements. Of sixty-nine executions in six 
years, but four took place in Ulster, where one- 
third of the people of Ireland lived. Of the 
entire police force of Ireland, but one-seventh is 
employed in Ulster. The explanation of all this 
was seen in the fact that in Ulster Protestants 



ADDRESS IX BEHALF OF IRELAND. 133 

were as one to two, in Leinster as one to five and 
a half, in Munster one to twenty, in Con naught 
one to twenty-three, though since the famine the 
proportion of Protestants is much larger. 

Government cannot make this difference. Brit- 
ish power is as good on the Shannon as on the 
Liffy. The same government is in England, 
with this difference, that the latter is more 
heavily taxed. What is it, then, but Irish 
priestcraft which makes the difference ? 

The difference is not in the nature or blood of 
the Irish. For wit, heart, sympathy, they may 
be put beside the English, German, or French 
peasantry ; and if they had been fi-eed from 
Roman priesthood, and under the training of 
Protestantism, would have been to-day one of 
the most genial, generous, enlightened and 
powerful of the races of the earth. Rome feared 
the English tongue, for it carried liberty, light, 
and truth wherever it went — to America, Aus- 
tralia, Hindoostan, the Pacific shores : nowhere 
could the Pope combat it except in Ireland, and 
there it trained its devoted friends in the English 
tongue and Romish creed, and poured them on 
the shores of England and America to aid in 



134 ADDRESS IN BEHALF OF IRELAND. 

obstructing the progress of Anglo-Saxon enlight- 
enment. He intended soon to establish a great 
college in Rome, especially for America, and the 
least we could do was to return the compliment 
by establishing a Methodist college in his strong- 
hold of Ireland. 

As an English Methodist I speak of the char- 
acter of Protestant Irishmen, so different from 
that of the CathoHc Irishmen whom we saw 
around us ; of the vast contributions of preachers 
and laymen which Irish Methodism had sent 
hither, there being no less than two hundred 
and fifty ministers of that class. The Irish 
Methodist Churches were continually being 
weakened in this way for the benefit of the 
stronger Church in America. Notwithstanding 
this, the Irish Church labored hard ; it had sixty 
mission schools, though six hundred would be all 
too few for four and a half million Catholics ; it 
had two preachers for the market-places, though 
twenty would be as nothing. It was in the 
market-places Catholics could be reached, for 
there were tens of thousands who listened who 
would not dare enter the churches for fear of the 
priest's horsewhip or his fearful maledictions. 



ADDRESS IN BEHALF OF IRELAND. 135 

The street preachers had been stoned at times, 
but in one town a deep impression was made by 
the accidental drowning of two of the ringleaders 
of the persecutors the next day, which was looked 
on as a warning ; while in another instance the 
preacher carried a case of assault to a high court 
by appeal, when a Roman Catholic judge was 
forced to rule that the street preacher was 
legally engaged ; so that all Ireland knows now 
that when they attack a Methodist street-preacher 
they attack British law — two very different things 
in their estimation. I appeal to Americans, who 
behold the flood of ignorance and vice pouring 
over us fi'om that land, to pour in a flood of 
light on the sources of that error. 

Look at the influences brought to bear by 
Romanism in hedgiog up the path of a Protestant 
Christianity. There is' the terror of the priest's 
horsewhip ; the terror of his neighbors, of loss of 
employment, of superstition, of the terrible curse ; 
the anathema of excommunication, when the 
priest takes the soul of the man, and with bell, 
book, and candle calls on the Holy Trinity — on 
angels, archangels, martyrs, saints, and the Church 
to curse him — to curse his hair, his eyes, his ears, 



136 ADDRESS IN BEHALF OF IRELAND. 

and every part of his body ; then there is the 
terror of priestly power, which he fears will lay 
its hands upon him in the world to come. 
Many an Irishman when awakened, dreading 
these terrors, has concealed his convictions, and 
some have hastened to America to escape them. 

As an instance of the power of the priesthood 
over the poor uneducated members of that 
Church, I will relate the following story, told by 
one of the Lish preachers : — 

In a distant part of Ireland there Hved a 
farmer. On a certain occasion the preacher, who 
was traveling the circuit, having heard of him, 
determined to pay him a visit, which he accord- 
ingly did. Almost as soon as he entered the 
house the son of Wesley opened his message, and 
requested the piwlege of preaching in the neigh- 
borhood. This was granted ; the word of God 
was attended with power; the Lord opened the 
farmer's heart, as he did that of Lydia of Thyatira, 
and he opened his parlor and invited the preacher 
to make it a preaching place. This, of course, 
was accepted with gladness, and it was not long 
before the farmer and his family, and several of 
the neighbors, were happily converted to God. 



ADDRESS IN BEHALF OF IRELAND. 137 

A class was formed, and the farmer was ap- 
pointed its leader. He had in his employ a 
cow-herd, a Eoman Catholic, who, hearing of 
what was going on, became wonderfully alarmed. 
It was his custom to bring the cows home at a 
certain hour in the day ; but whenever the period 
amved for meeting he was always sure to antici- 
pate the time by an hour, so that he might be 
away, and not annoyed by the '' swaddlers," as 
the Methodist preachers were called. While he 
was using all this precaution, the Spirit of God 
was silently yet powerfully working in the soul 
of the simple-hearted man. He had heard 
enough of Gospel truth, by rumor and otherwise, 
to awaken him to a sense of his lost condition, 
and he became sad and dispirited. As he went 
moping about with a dejected countenance, unfit 
for work, his wife said to him one day — 

'•Brian, what ails you? You are good for 
nothing.'' 

^' Molly, my dear, I 'm afraid I '11 lose my 
sowl." 

" Lose your sowl, man ! an' how 's that ? Are 
ye not the best man in the parish, and don't ye 
attend to all vour dues and duties ? What have 



138 ADDRESS IN BEHALF OF IRELAND. 

ye been doing? Have ye been murthering or 
robbing anybody ?" 

" Nae, Molly ; the truth is I 'm afraid I '11 lose 
my sow! — indade, I will lose my sowl !" 

" Why, Brian, what makes ye think that ?" 

"Because," said the deeply- convicted man, 
"I'm all dirty within!" 

" My advice is that ye go immadiately to the 
praist, and tell him all about it." 

Brian accordingly went to see the holy father, 
and commenced telling him how bad he was and 
how badly he felt. 

" What 's the matter, Brian ?" 

Brian then related the conversation which 
passed between him and Molly, and closed by 
saying, "0, holy father, I 'm all dirty within !" 

" O, yon dog !" said the priest, " you have been 
to hear the swaddlers preach." 

" Not I, yer riverence : I kept far enough away 
from them. To be sure I did, and niver a one 
of them have I heard prache !" 

The priest then tried to allay his fears about 
his losing his soul, telling him to come to con- 
fession, and attend the mass, and all would be 
well. But, alas ! Brian grew worse an(i worse, 



ADDRESS IN BEHALF OF IRELAND. 139 

until finally the priest told him to go to Loch 
Dergh, St. Patrick's purgatory. In the midst of 
Loch Dergh, or Red Lake, there was a rocky 
island which was called St. Patrick's Island, or 
the purgatory for refractory, incurable Catholics. 
And indeed it was a purgatory, a bleak and 
dreary spot, and the banished ones were obliged to 
go barefooted upon the sharp stones, and kneel 
upon their bare knees, fasting, and praying to the 
Virgin, until they were restored, or had suffered 
sufficient to atone for their sins. 

Brian accordingly went to Loch Dergh, and 
crossed over to St. Patrick's purgatory, where he 
went through with the penance upon his bare 
knees. After remaining there some time he re- 
turned home. 

As soon as his wife saw him she said, " Well, 
Brian, you won't lose your sowl now." 

" Och, dear," he repHed, " I Ve been to Loch 
Dergh, but I 'm dirtier than I iver was before !" 

" Well, then, ye must go and see father Tom 
again;" which he did, and the priest meetiog 
him, said, " Well, Brian, it 's all right now !" 

"Nae, holy father, I'm dirtier and dirtier!" 

"Brian," said the priest, "you must try and 



11-0 ADDRESS IN BEHALF OF IRELAND. 

get your spirits up. Thei-e is to be a dance at 
such a place; go, and don't forget to take a 
drop ; it will do you good." 

Brian, supposing that any advice from the 
clergy was right, never having been instructed 
otherwise, went to the dance, and did take a 
drop, but it was a drop too much, and he be- 
came intoxicated. He came home late at night, 
and his wife was awakened by hearing him roll- 
ing and roaring on the floor, saying, " Sure, and 
I'll lose my sowl !" She became alarmed, and 
commenced crying, and together they wept and 
prayed as well as they knew how until morn- 
ing. 

That day he went to his work, and, as usual, 
brought the cows home for his master ; but he 
forgot that it was the day of the meeting. He 
concluded to stay and hear the preaching, and 
for this purpose took a seat outside, near the 
door. The text was, "What must I do to be 
saved?" He found the sermon wonderfully to 
correspond with his own thoughts, and he be- 
came intensely interested. The preacher alluded 
to the different answers sometimes given to the 
question, " What must I do to be saved ?" and 



ADDRESS IN BEHALF OF IRELAND. 141 

among others he remarked the poor convicted 
sinner is sometimes told by the priest to go to 
Loch Dergh and he will be saved. 

"Och, I'll declare," said Brian audibly, "it's 
me, sure. Have n't I ben there !" 

Sometimes he is asked to go and drink, to 
drive away his sorrows. 

" Och, and was n't it only yisterday the praist 
towld me to do that same; and the di\dl's ad- 
vice it was, too." 

At this the master went out, and brought him 
in and quieted him. After the preaching was 
ended Brian whispered to his master, and said, 
" I would like to stay and spake to that gintle- 
man." To this the master assented. 

When the congregation was dismissed, and 
they were about to hold class-meeting, his mas- 
ter requested him to stay, which he did ; and 
when he was spoken to he got up and told the 
whole story we have been relating. 

" You say," addressing the preacher, " that if I 
belave on the Lord Jasus Christ I shall be saved. 
How do ye know that ?" 

" By the word of God," said the preacher. 

"An' have you that word ?" 



142 ADDRESS IN BEHALF OF IRELAND. 

''Here it is," said lie, holding up the Bible. 
" Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you Tvill 
be saved." 

Brian sat down comforted ; but before the class 
was through he sprang to his feet, and, seizing 
the preacher, he said, " What ails me, sir ? what 
ails me ? I don't feel bad any more at all, at all ; 
I 'm all clane within." 

" You are converted," the preacher replied. 

" And whin will ye convart agin ? I 'd like to 
have Molly convarted." 

He went home a happy man, walking, and 
leaping, and praising God. When he met his 
wife he exclaimed, " O, Molly, I 'm all clane 
within ! the Lord Jasus Christ has convarted my 
sowl!" 

On Sunday morning he took Molly with him 
to meeting, and it was not long before she was 
brought to taste the pardoning love of God. 
Still Brian had not forgotten his Church, and he 
said to his master, " Shall I go to mass ?" 

The master, believing he was under the teach- 
ings and guidance of the Spirit, told him to go 
if he desired. He and Molly accordingly went to 
church, and after the ceremony of reading the 



ADDRESS IN BEHALF OF IRELAND. 143 

prayers in Latin was over, the priest, addressing 
Brian and his Tvife, said, " Come up here, you 
heretic dog I" (Many a man has thus been 
singled out and denounced from the altar, and 
not long after had a bullet shot through his 
heart.) 

"You have deceived me, you arch heretic," 
continued the priest ; " you have been to hear 
the swaddlers." 

" Yes, yer riverence, glory be to God ! I have 
been convarted, and so has Molly.'' 

" How dare you speak to me thus ! Go down 
on your knees before the altar and pray to the 
Virgin, or I'll curse you, bell, book, and can- 
dle." 

Finding him unyielding, he then uttered the 
curse before the whole congregation. Candles 
were placed around, and at the ringing of a bell 
the curse began. All the saints, and angels, and 
holy martyrs were invoked to curse him. The 
curse went into detail, extending to every mem- 
ber of his body, from his hair down to his toes. 
He was cursed in all possible conditions and cir- 
cumstances in life. Such a curse everlasting 
malice only could invent. The person cursed 



144 ADDRESS IN BEHALF OF IRELAND. 

v/as cut off from all the sympatliies and aid of the 
congregation ; and if he was a merchant, me- 
chanic, or laboring man, ail custom would at 
once be withdrawn. After the curse he was per- 
mitted to leave, and he went out notwithstand- 
ing a happy man ; for how can a priest " curse 
whom God has not cursed ?" 

Brian and Molly led consistent and pious lives, 
died in the faith, and went up to glory. 

This case illustrates the condition of a vast 
majority of the people in Ireland. 

Compare the condition of Ireland with Scotland, 
England, and Wales, and you will see that while 
the latter are of the same stoct as the original 
Irish, the Welsh language and literature are 
flourishing, while that of Ireland is going to decay. 
In many hamlets in Ireland there is no Bible, 
not even a book. In six counties, comprising 
seventy-four towns, there is not one bookseller, 
and in all this region nothing can be seen 
scarcely but mud cabins, brown and dingy, with 
a mud chimney imperfectly defined, out of which 
the smoke creeps sluggishly, or comes out at 
the door, where may be seen men, women, chil- 
dren, and pigs. Nothing but cheerlessness is to 



ADDRESS IN BEHALF OF IRELAND. 145 

be found. If you were to see a neat cottage 
in the midst of this waste, with everything cheer- 
ful about it, you need not ask if it was occupied 
by a Protestant ; you might be sure of that. 

There are millions in Ireland who have no 
Bible, and yet there are many of the Roman 
Catholic Church who hide it away and read it 
by stealth for fear of the priest, a terror from 
which they cannot get rid. Such is the power 
of superstition that many of them believe that if 
the priests wished they could turn them into 
goats, and that they have the power at a word, 
if they choose, of fastening a person on the ground 
where they stand. 

If you, my brethren in America, will enable us 
to multiply our missions and schools, thousands 
of these will be saved. While I was at a meet- 
ing in Cleveland, a gentleman rose and said he 
had been in this country three years. The vessel 
in which he came over had many emigrants, and 
among the number there were fifty who declared 
as soon as they got to this country they would 
throw off the papal yoke. 

It is the policy of the priests in England and 
[reland to keep up the opposition to Protestant- 
1 



146 ADDRESS IN BEHALF OF IRELAND. 

ism bj a cry of persecution, and every other con- 
ceivable means. It is the same in America, and 
every mob they can excite is only so much in 
their favor, especially if Catholic churches are 
burned and some drunken Irishmen are killed. 
They thus use their own people for the purpose 
of keeping up a perpetual enmity. 

Political agitation in Ireland, thank God! is 
dead. Several caiases have operated to show that 
it is not for the benefit of the Irish people, but 
for the priesthood. In the famine, the day of 
Ireland's trouble and distress, the people received 
no sympathy from the priests ; but Protestant 
clergymen and people came to their relief, and 
the British government appropriated millions, 
while immense sums were raised by Protestants 
everywhere. Protestant America came with her 
vessels loaded with bread. This the Roman 
Catholic feels. Only make one feel that you care 
for his body, and you will find a direct avenue 
to his heart. 

You have all heard of the life and labors of 
Gideon Ouseley, the apostle of Ireland. While 
preaching in the streets he relied for safety upon 
two things : first, a good horse ; and, secondly, a 



ADDRESS IX BEHALF OF IRELAND. 147 

good position. He was always careful to get be- 
fore an apothecary's window, and was also partic- 
ular that it should be owned by a Catholic : hence 
the multitude were deterred from throwing^ stones. 
Notwithstanding these precautions he often re- 
ceived severe wounds in his Master's cause. 
Ouseley had a noble soul, enlightened and 
mellowed by the love of God ; and to wondering 
and weeping thousands he has poured forth in 
that wild tongue heavenly eloquence. Under the 
preaching of that sainted man, many a ragged, 
barefooted wanderer has had the light of heaven 
poured into his soul ; and under the influence of 
his laboi's they have lived and died happy. 
There is not a county but from different places 
the holies and chariots of fire have descended 
and taken up the children of Gideon Ouseley to 
heaven. Many have also gone up from this 
country to join the shout of the ransomed in that 
band. If anything would make the bones of 
that veteran saint dance in the grave, it would 
be the intelligence that a Methodist street- 
preacher, by the decision of a Roman Catholic 
judge, was protected in Ireland. 
Some of vou have heard of the battle of the 



148 ADDRESS IN BEHALF OF IRELAND. 

Boyne, wliicli saved Ireland from the grasp of 
James. I went to visit the spot, and, while 
gazing upon it, I said to my coachman, " This 
was a glorious day for Ireland." He looked at 
me rather suspiciously, and, after finding out that 
I was a Methodist clergyman, he said, " I confess 
that I see many of our clergy all for themselves. 
When I drive Protestant clergymen they always 
pay me, but I never yet got the first cent from a 
priest. The last one I drove was not going to pay 
me anything, as usual ; but, as I had no money in 
my pocket, and needed things for home, I thought 
I would ask him for some ; but he turned me oflP, 
and shut the door in my face. Soon after he 
came to my house and asked me to give him 
two shiUings for my dues. I told him I had none. 
'Well,' said he, 'haven't you one shilling!' I 
said, ' Yes, you have it yourself. You have got 
my shilling that you owe me for driving you, 
and you can go.'" 

I will relate an incident of a poor man who 
had got a Bible in the Irish tongue. The priest 
insisted on having it that he might burn it ; but 
to all his entreaties he would not give it up. 
Finally the priest told him it would do him great 



ADDRESS IN BEHALF OF IRELAND. 149 

harm. He replied: "St. Paul says ye must 
desire the sincere milk of the word, that we may 
grow thereby." '' 0," said the priest, " we give 
you that in confession and the mass." "Plase 
your riverence, if the milk is so wholesome, I 
do n't think it bad for a man to keep the cow in 
his own house." 

Bishop Hughes would not like to have the 
children of this country drink the pure milk of 
the word. He knows they would grow too strong 
intellectually and morally for the mummeries of 
Romanism. The priests are counting upon much 
in Ireland through the various agencies employed. 
They look to England, and even Australia, and 
have a most watchful eye on America. Let 
us determine, by the holy help of God, that the 
accursed scepter of Rome shall be broken. 

You in America have shown us much kind- 
ness, not only personally, but for the cause we 
advocate; and the little Irish connection of 
Methodists we represent will be cheered by your 
sympathy and aid. I need not say you are in- 
debted to Ireland. As the poor Irish itinerant 
rides round his cheerless circuit, he visits a neigh- 
borhood where once there was preaching, but the 



150 ADDRESS IN BEHALF OF IRELAND. 

Methodists that formed the society have removed 
to Ohio, He finds another neighborhood ahke 
deserted, and the members that formed the class 
are in the distant Missouri. There dwells a 
family vt^ho had a son called of God to preach 
the Gospel, and having gifts fitting him for the 
work, but he is now a member of the Cincinnati 
Conference. There are at this day more Irish 
Methodists in America than there are in Ireland, 
and there are nearly one hundred more Irish 
preachers in this than in the mother country. 
The able and talented editor of your Quarterly 
Review is the son of an Irish emigrant ; and the 
learned Dr. Elliott, who is the editor of the 
Western Christian Advocate, is, as you all know, 
an L'ishman. If Ireland has a population over 
which she may blush, thank God she has children 
of whom she may be proud. In the days of 
England's trials Edmund Burke stood a tower 
of strength in the British parhament. Read his 
speeches on the pacification of America. 

Ireland needs one thing, and that is evangeli- 
zation. We appeal in her behalf, and we are 
encouraged to ask largely. We have not thus 
far been disappointed. You did not begin on a 



ADDRESS IX BEHALF OF IRELAND. 151 

small scale. You began with thousaods. What 
will you do to-night. Let me entreat you to give 
until you feel it w^ell. I could not discharge 
my duty to the dying millions behind me, and 
clear my skirts, if I were not importunate in be- 
half of my poor unhappy Ireland. 



FAREWELL MEETING AT GREENE-STREET. 

The spacious church was filled to witness the 
exercises connected with the departure of Mr. 
Arthur to England, who introduced the exer- 
cises by reading the 16th hymn, 

" Before Jehovah^s awful throne, 
Ye nations bow with sacred joy.^^ 

After this hymn was sung, the Rev. Mr. Butler 
led in prayer. Mr. Arthur then rose, and read 
a part of the 12th chapter of Paul's Epistle to 
the Hebrews. Another hymn was sung and the 
reverend gentleman announced his text, which 
consisted of a part of the 8th verse of the 19th 
chapter of Exodus : " And all the people an- 
sioered together^ and said, All that the Lord hath 
spoken we will do." 

Fifty days had passed away since God had 
brought the children of Israel from the land of 
their bondage. They had penetrated far into 
^ 7^ 



154 FAREWELL MEETING 

the desert, and had arrived at Mount Horeb, 
which Hfted its granite brow thousands of feet 
above them. Around the base of that mountain 
were congregated three millions of people. While 
there assembled, the Lord solemnly proposed a 
covenant with the people, and called Moses up 
into the mountain, and said to him : " Thus shalt 
thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the chil- 
dren of Israel ; Ye have seen what I did unto 
the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' 
wings, and brought you unto myself." Then fol- 
lows the formal declaration of a covenant: "Now, 
therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and 
keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar 
treasure" — not an exclusive, but a pecuhar treas- 
ure^ — " unto me above all people : for all the earth 
is mine : and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of 
priests, and a holy nation. These are the words 
which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel." 
After Moses had received this communication, 
he descended the mountain, and " called for the 
elders of the people, and laid before their faces 
all these words which the Lord had commanded 
him. And all the people answered together, and 
said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do." 



AT GREENE-STREET. 155 

This deliberate and unanimous acceptance of the 
divine proposal is returned to the Lord. " And 
the Lord said unto Moses, Lo, I come unto thee 
in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when 
I speak with thee, and believe thee forever." 

Moses told the Lord the answer which the 
people had made to his proposal : " And the 
Lord said, Go unto the people, and sanctify them 
to-day and to-morrow, and let them wash their 
clothes, and be ready against the third day : for 
the third day the Lord will come down in the sight 
of all the people upon Mount Sinai. And thou 
shalt set bounds unto the people round about, 
saying, Take heed to yourselves that ye gO not up 
into the mount or touch the border of it : who- 
soever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to 
death : there shall not a hand touch it, but he shall 
surely be stoned or shot through : whether it be 
beast or man, it shall not live : when the trumpet 
soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount." 

After this Moses again came down the mount- 
ain, and communicated all to the people. Sac- 
rifices were slain, the clothes of all were washed, 
and the people were sanctified for the day when 
they should meet God. The covenant was 



166 FAREWELL MEETING 

entered into now most fully, and the blood there- 
of was spnnkled upon the people. From this 
outline of the subject the following points may 
be drawn, viz. : 

1. The preliminary proposal on the part of 
God. 

2. The designation of a Mediator of that 
covenant. 

3. The formal announcement. 

4. The acceptance on the part of the people. 
6. The sealing of the covenant. 

6. The divine manifestation. 

These are the leading points to which I call 
your attention for a short time. Dear friends, 
let us be in earnest. Pray that I may have 
spiritual help. We are professedly God's people, 
and have had the law written on our hearts and 
consciences. Let us lay our hand to a covenant. 

There we see three millions of people encamp- 
ed at the base of yonder mountain ; Moses goes 
up that mountain in their behalf to meet God ; 
Jehovah speaks : ''Ye have seen what I did unto 
the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' 
wings, and brought you unto myself." He not 
only proposes to enter into a covenant with them, 



AT GREEXE-STREET. 157 

but promises to continue his gracious care over 
them. He recalls past mercies extended to them, 
and appeals to the fact of their redemption in the 
overthrow of the Egyptian power which crushed 
them. Israel was young and helpless as an 
eaglet, exposed to the beasts of prey, and just as 
the foe was about to spring upon the helpless, 
unprotected victim, Jehovah caught it up, and 
bore it to the heavens out of reach and out of 
sight of the enemy, leaving it to wonder at the 
power thus manifested in its behalf. " Ye have 
seen how I bare you on eagles' wings." Strange 
appeal to a whole nation just dehvered from 
bondage by a stretched-out arm, an arm unseen, 
all-powerful, by which they were brought from 
the land of their captivity, and conducted toward 
their own land. Under such circumstances, their 
deliverer calls upon them to enter into a covenant 
as to the future, that they might be " a pecuhar 
treasure unto him above all people," affirming 
that all souls were his ; every creature, the spirits 
of all flesh, are the Lord's ; he lifteth up one and 
pntteth down another. It is his to give pecuhar 
distinguishing blessings. 

And, my brethren, the great God is our 



158 FAREWELL MEETING 

Saviour, and he appeals to us to enter into 
covenant with him, because he had redeemed 
us by the blood of his Son ; hath delivered us 
from the bondage of sin, and hath blessed us with 
his grace. If we enter into covenant with him, 
he will love and bless us all our days, will guide 
us safely through this life, and crown us with the 
heritage of glory in heaven. Let us hear the 
proposal of the covenant with God, and at once 
accept its merciful and gracious stipulations — 
"• If ye will obey my voice." Here there can be 
no negotiation, nor is any diplomacy needed. 
The proposition is simple and clear in itself, and 
all may fully comprehend its import. "K ye 
will obey my voice." It is the voice of Jehovah, 
our Maker and Redeemer ; and there is no hav- 
ing our own way in reference to the terms of a 
salvation which comes from him alone. He is 
the arbiter of life and death; "He can create, 
and he destroy." He says to one, " Go ! and he 
goeth ; and to another. Come ! and he cometh." 
All power in heaven and earth resides in him. 
When the creature enters into covenant with the 
Creator, it is for the Creator to propose and the 
creature to accept. The place of the one is upon 



AT GREENE-STREET. 159 

the throne, with the scepter of his sovereignty ; 
and that of the other, low down on his knees at 
the foot of that throne, repenting, and praying 
for pardon and salvation. 

How was the proposal met by the Israelites ? 
They all with one accord accepted it most 
frankly, exclaiming, "All that the Lord hath 
spoken we will do.'' We notice that the pro- 
posal on the part of God was not made to the Israel- 
ites directly, but through Moses. When he had 
received the acceptance on the part of the people, 
he went to the Lord and returned the answer. 
Then "the Lord said to Moses, Lo, I come unto 
thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear 
when I speak with thee, and believe thee forever." 
In Moses, the mediator of that covenant, we have 
a type of the Mediator of the new covenant, who 
was distinctly marked out, so that the people 
might believe forever. Jehovah was about to 
manifest himself in such a way, that all might 
be satisfied that Moses was a messenger fi*om 
God. This transaction, in which a man of the 
same nature of the people he represented became 
a mediator, is prefigurative of the great Mediator, 
who took upon himself human nature. 



160 FAREWELL MEETING 

After this interview, Moses again descended 
the mountain, and came to the people. The 
note of preparation was then sounded throughout 
the entire encampment. Prepare for the third 
day, for the Lord will come down. There is not 
a tent in all Israel where this theme is not the 
topic of conversation. The day after to-morrow 
" the Lord will come down in the sight of all the 
people," and speak to us from the mountain. 
Not a child but had upon its lips the words, 
" The day after to-morrow the Lord will come 
down in the sight of all the people." This con- 
versation was continued for one day and part of 
anothei'. Every man looked to his tent, and all 
were engaged in preparation for the great ev^ent. 
How wonderful the change ! They who were so 
lately shut up to a cruel destiny in Egypt, were 
now on the very eve of being blessed with a mani- 
festation of the glorious God. Thus passed the 
time until the morning of the third day arrived. 

None were allowed to touch even the borders 
of that sacred mountain, on which Jehovah was 
to descend in majesty and glory. The people 
were gathered together in the midst of the camp, 
every tent was forsaken, and all eyes were turned 



AT GREE>?E-STREET. 161 

to a fixed and steady gaze upon the mountain. 
Soon they behold coming down upon the summit, 
and spreading like a pavilion down to its very 
base, a dark thick cloud ; and then out-flashing 
from this cloud, in every direction were to be 
seen fierce, terrific lightnings, followed by peals 
of thunder, which shook the foundations of the 
mountain. Then followed, above the roar of 
thunders, the shrill blast of a trumpet, whose 
sound struck terror into the hearts of the people, 
and made the stoutest tremble. Some of you 
may not know how difficult it is for the sound of 
a trumpet to reach the foot of a hill ; but here, 
fi'om the summit of a mountain towering up 
thousands of feet from its broad base, there 
comes the sound of a trumpet, whose awful 
blasts are heard by milhons : a whole nation is 
terrified at the sound. It is the breath of the 
Almighty ; and those shrill notes go through the 
vast encampment, impressing all with their super- 
natural nature. At this Moses commanded all 
the people to leave the camp, and assemble 
around the further base of the mountain. No 
sooner were they thus arranged than the whole 
summit of the mountain smoked like a gi-eat 



162 FAREWELL MEETING 

furnace, for the Lord descended upon it in fire, 
and Sinai trembled with the burden of the God- 
head. Then again sounded the trumpet, but 
louder and longer than before. The whole 
mountain seemed to be on fire ; and in the 
midst of the smoke, and flames, and thunder, 
and lightning, and trumpet sound, thrilling the 
whole of the heavens, and making the earth 
quake beneath their feet, Moses lifted up his 
voice. Nor was the mediator himself without 
fear and trembling. Paul tells us that, so terrible 
was the manifestation, Moses said, *' I exceed- 
ingly fear and quake." While the mountain 
was thus flaming, and the lightnings, and thun- 
ders, and trumpets, were flashing and sounding, 
and the earth was trembling, yet there is seen 
the mediator turning his face before the burning, 
thundering mountain. O yes, my brethren, 
better go up to the blazing, thundering mount- 
ain than anywhere else ; better go up where God 
is in all his sovereign majesty with the Media- 
tor, than to seek refuge anywhere else ! Hav- 
ing a Mediator, his presence, though a consuming 
fire without one, becomes a place of mercy. 
There is Judah raising her banner, around 



AT GREENE-STREET. 163 

which are gathered seventy-four thousand of the 
tribe. Then comes Ephraim, forty thousand ; 
and Eeuben, forty-six thousand; and so on, 
until all the tribes, with their thousands and 
tens of thousands, are marshaled before the 
Lord. Amid the terrific scenes by which they 
were surrounded, which made all hearts tremble, 
and caused the consciences of all to smite them- 
selves, and exclaim, What shall we do? we 
perish! then in that moment of peril Moses 
spoke. The mediator stands between the assem- 
bled terror-stricken millions and their God, and 
Hfts up his voice. Under a dreadful sound, as 
if the clangor of the last trump summoning 
to judgment was sounding in their ears, he 
spoke. 

What a picture of human nature is here 
exhibited ! The whole collective race of man is 
here represented and gathered around ; as if 
awaiting our doom, we stand trembhng until 
our Mediator speaks. ! there is a name that 
does not fear thunder ; and there was a voice 
lifted up for thee and me. There was One who 
spoke in our behalf, and gave himself a ransom 
for us. Through Him we come, not to the 



164 FAREWELL MEETING 

mount that burned with fire, but to Mount 
Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem. 

Moses spoke and God answered him. But how ? 
With the fierce and terific sound of the trumpet ? 
No ! God answered him with a voice. It was 
not with the hghtning, or thunder, or trum- 
pet, or earthquake, but with a voice. God was 
reasoning with man, and the Creator and creat- 
ure were brought face to face. Here was solved 
one great problem of humanity. Has God spoken ? 
Since the first day that man entered upon his in- 
heritance upon earth, has God spoken to him ? 
has Jehovah communicated his will, or are the 
revelations we have the mere juggleries of priests ? 
is there nothing settled — ^no rock upon which we 
may stand secure, while the waves are dashing 
around us ? Is there no firm footing, no solid 
ground on which to stand immovable as eter- 
nity ? Has God spoken ? or has he looked down 
upon the world, leaving it to go on and on in 
darkness, treating us as the beasts that perish ? 
O, blessed be his holy name ! he has spoken. The 
people heard that voice calling Moses up to the 
top of the mount in the thick darkness. There 
was not only a manifestation, but the voice of the 



AT GREENE-STREET. 165 

Lord was heard, and the histoiy of that whole 
nation rests upon the fact that God spoke. The 
fact is identified with the history of the world, 
for God has not left it without a revelation. Thy 
voice, Father ! hath sounded, and men have 
heard its accents of mercy and love. We have 
heard it, and our children have heard it. The 
sound of that voice will never cease to reverberate 
in our ears till the last trumpet shall sound, and 
" the Lord shall descend from heaven with a 
shout, with the voice of the archangel and the 
trump of God." 

Moses charges the people not to go near to the 
mountain to gaze through, lest they die. When 
all was in readiness to receive the commands of 
the Lord, the annunciation began. There stood 
Moses at the foot of the mountain ; behind him 
were all the people ; and while all was breathless 
attention, God spoke. The voice seemed to come 
out of the bosom of the mountain. We are apt to 
forget that the Ten Commandments were uttered 
with a voice. It was the only communication 
that came direct to the ears of the people, and 
they stand out above all the words of Scripture. 
They were first uttered by the Almighty, and 



166 FAREWELL MEETING 

afterward written upon two tables ot stone, that 
they might be kept in everlasting remembrance. 

God spoke, saying, " I am the Lord thy God, 
which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, 
out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no 
other gods before me." What a gush of heart- 
felt emotion must have pervaded the minds of all 
that mighty assembly, as their deliverance was 
thus announced by the Deliverer himself! 

" Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven 
image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven 
above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in 
the water under the earth : thou shalt not bow down 
thyself to them nor serve them : for I the Lord 
thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of 
the fathers upon the children, unto the third and 
fourth generation of them that hate me ; and 
showing mercy unto thousands of them that love 
me and keep my commandments." 

May we not readily imagine, that we hear the 
multitude say, " To whom shall we liken thee, 
O thou Most High? Thou dwellest in hght, 
though thou makest darkness thy pavilion." 

"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord 
thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him 



AT GREENE-STREET. 167 

guiltless that taketh his name in vain." Ah ! 
every heart in that assembly would say, from 
its very depths, " Holy and reverend is thy name." 

" Kemember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy. 
Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy vsrork ; 
but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy 
God : in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor 
thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man servant, nor 
thy maid servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger 
that is within thy gates : for in six days the Lord 
made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in 
them is, and rested the seventh day : wherefore 
the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day, and hallowed 
it." Did they not with one accord say, " We will 
reverence thy name and hallow thy Sabbaths ?" 

" Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy 
days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy 
God giveth thee." How precious this command ! 
Here is an old man whose son has been an Ab- 
salom, whose heart has often been wrung with 
grief at the waywardness and rebelliousness of 
his child. But that son hears the voice of God ; 
as it comes upon his soul, he relents, and his 
heart is turned to his father. 

** Thou shalt not kill." Here is some Jacob, 



168 FAREWELL MEETING 

and some Esau has vowed to slay him ; but he 
is comforted by this command, which protects his 
life. He can say, " God is on my side ; I shall 
not fear what man can do unto me." 

" Thou shalt not commit adultery." From 
individuals God comes to families. What, does 
God think of our homes and families by thus 
throwing around them the shield of his protec- 
tion ? 

" Thou shalt not steal." Does God look after 
our property, and forbid any from taking it away 
from us by stealth or fraud ? 

" Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy 
neighbor.'^ Thus we see that he not only looks 
after our property, but he takes our reputation 
too into his own hands. 

" Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, 
thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his 
man servant, nor his maid servant, nor his ox, 
nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's." 
Thus God not only prohibits all from depriving 
us of that which belongs to us by a positive com- 
mand, but, by an equally positive one, his law 
takes away every feeling or desire that would 
lead thereto. 



AT GREENE-STREET. 169 

O, if that multitude had stood in his presence, 
before he uttered his commands, with fear and 
trembling, how must they have felt then ! In- 
stead of lifting up their voices and praising God, 
they all feel that the voice is not the voice of ap- 
proval, but the voice of accusation. " Thou shalt 
have no other gods before me," awakened guilty 
reflections in some minds, and they bowed to the 
earth. " Thou shalt not take the name of thy 
God in vain," caused the tongues of some to 
cleave to the roofs of their mouths. " Thou shalt 
not kill," awakened a Cain, whose feelings were 
past endurance, and he felt as if the flames of the 
burning mountain had set right on his head. 
" Thou shalt not commit adultery," sent conviction 
to many a heart, and startled many a conscience 
from its slumbers at the announcement. " Thou 
shalt not steal :" there are hands that wither up. 
" Thou shalt not covet." That word pierced all 
hearts. There were Pharisees there who said, 
doubtless, in their hearts, " I had not sinned un- 
less the law had said. Thou shalt not covet, but 
have kept all the commands from my youth up." 

Every man felt guilty as the law broke forth 
its sentences. Every heart was smitten at the 
8 



1*70 FAREWELL MEETIisG 

revelation of the will of God. When the words 
were pronounced, what was the echo ? Not that 
of a grateful people and a pure nation. The cry 
from the assembled millions rolled up the sum- 
rait, and startled every mountain echo, "We die! 
we die ! Let not God speak to us." There was 
human nature in the presence of justice, the claims 
of a pure law ; that law is over us, and we die. 

They turn to Moses away from the flashing 
terrors of the law, and say, " Speak thou with us, 
and we will hear ; but let not God speak with us, 
lest we die." Here is the only resort of human 
nature condemned by the law to die. The com- 
mandments are holy, but we are guilty. Let us 
then turn to Jesus Christ the Mediator, and say 
to him. Speak thou with us, or we die. After the 
people had thus appealed to Moses as the me- 
diator, they withdrew from the mountain and 
stood afar off, while Moses entered the thick dark- 
ness where God was. While here the Lord gave 
him sundry other commands and ordinances, 
which he was to communicate to the people. 
These words and ordinances he told in the ears 
of all the people when he returned to them, and 
the second time they gave in their adhesion, say- 



AT GREENE-STREET. l7l 

incr. " All the words which the Lord hath said 
we will do." But Moses was not satisfied with 
this, and he wrote all the commands of the Lord, 
erected an altar near the base of the hill, sup- 
ported by twelve pillars, according to the number 
of the twelve tribes, and he sent young men of 
the children of Israel to offer burnt-offerings, and 
sacrifice peace-ofterings of oxen to the Lord ; and 
he took half of the blood of the sacrifices and put 
it in basins, and the other half he sprinkled on 
the altar. Then he took the book of the cove- 
nant, in which he had written the words of the 
Lord, and read it in the hearing of all the people, 
and they listened attentively to all its words. 
Here we see the multitude gathered around Moses. 
There is the altar between him and the mount- 
ain. With the roll of the covenant in his hand, 
and its words sounding in their ears, and all the 
solemnities of the scene throuorh which thev had 
passed fresh in their memories, the multitude ex- 
claimed for the third time, '' All that the Lord 
hath said we will do, and be obedient." 

Then in that solemn hour Moses, the mediator 
of the covenant and messenger of God, took the 
blood of the sacrifice and sprinkled it upon tlie 



1*72 FAREWELL MEETING 

people, saying, " Behold the blood of the cove- 
nant which the Lord hath made with you con- 
cerning all these words." O, blessed sight ! To 
see human necks bowing and human hearts 
bowing before the Lord their God; men who, 
having thought deliberately, heartily submitted 
themselves to the Lord, and received the blood 
of the atonement, which sealed the covenant that 
made them God's people forever. 

O, my brother, come to the Mediator of that 
new and better covenant established upon better 
promises, and be sprinkled with that blood which 
speaketh better things than the blood of Abel ; 
bow yourself before the Lord ; cast yourself at* 
the mercy-seat, where you may now come with 
the blood of Jesus. Cry out with David, " Purge 
me with hyssop, and 1 shall be clean ; wash me, 
and I shall be whiter than snow." Come with 
all thy sin and guilt, and our great High Priest 
will now sprinkle you, not with the blood of a 
lamb, or an ox, or the ashes of a heifer, or with 
a hyssop-branch, but with his own most pre- 
cious blood, which cleanseth from all sin. 

And now what follows the sealing of the cov- 
enant ? Up to this point the mountain was 



AT GREENE-STREET. lY3 

shut up against all but the mediator, but now 
Moses and Aaron, IS'adab and Abihu, and 
•seventy elders of Israel, ascend the holy place. 
Now that they are sprinkled, no fire consumes 
them, no dart pierces them through. They 
went up unharmed, and saw God, the God of 
Israel. There upon his throne, resting upon a 
sapphire pavement, which was like the body of 
heaven for clearness, they beheld the divine and 
wondrous manifestation. No cloud hung its 
dark frowning drapery around him ; no light- 
nings and thunders, and trumpet, and earthquake, 
filled their hearts with tormenting fear. They 
saw God the Father, and gazed with wonder, 
love, and praise upon his reconciled countenance, 
and with confidence they drew nigh, and rejoiced 
in the light and beauty of that heavenly place. 
This, to a reconciled soul, is God without dark- 
ness, fire, and storm. The vision was glorious 
because of that sprinkled blood. 

On the elders of Israel he did not lay his hand. 
It was not a vision that transformed them, and 
unfitted them for work below, but such as filled 
them with rapture — the rapture of heaven. They 
were human beings, having human bodies, with 



174 FAREWELL MEETING 

appetites and passions, following the bent of 
buraan nature, and hence in this embodiment of 
heaven they did eat and drink. O, how is human 
life elevated and sanctified by that manifestation I 
You may see God, and eat and drink ; you may 
see God, and buy, and sell, and get gain; you 
may see God, and attend to every duty to your 
family, your neighbor, your country, and caUing 
in life ; and you may see God, and enjoy every 
blessing. Jesus has opened up a new and living 
way to the Father by his blood, not along the 
rough and rugged steeps of Sinai, but by his 
cross and sprinkled with his blood. Without 
this sprinkled blood none shall see God. He 
proposes a covenant to all, and all may come to 
the " Mount Zion," the Church of the living God, 
to the heavenly Jerusalem, to a company of 
angels, to the spirits of the just made perfect, 
and to God the Judge of all, before whom all 
hearts are open, and from whom no secrets are 
hid. Every act you do is part of the deposition 
you are making for the last day. You are wit- 
nesses, and all that will be necessary at the 
judgment will be the reading out of the evi- 
dence. O, come to God, and get the pardon of all 



AT GREENE-STREET. 175 

your sins ; O, trembling spirit, bow to the cove- 
nant; O, sinner, why will you die? There is 
naught now to awaken alarm, no burning mount- 
ain with its thunders sounding in your ears, but 
remember the judgments of God hang impend- 
ing over you ; your sins are laid up as a store of 
wrath against the day of judgment. God now 
calls you ; you have been doing things which 
you would not have told out here. God said, 
" These things hast thou done and I kept silence, 
but I will reprove thee, and set them in order 
before thee." All your dark thoughts, and words, 
and deeds, he will array before you. O, " con- 
sider this, lest I tear thee in pieces, and there 
be none to deliver." 0, consider, God the Judge 
of all has all our acts under his eye, and all our 
words down in his book, and unless you flee for 
refuge to the hope set before you, there will be 
none to deliver. Rouse you from your guilty 
state of sin and false security, and you may be 
saved. Turn to Jesus the Mediator ; cast your 
cause into his hands ; he is the friend of sinners. 
Believe in him, and take his yoke upon you ; 
enter into his covenant, and he will put his law 
in your mind, and write it upon your heart. 



176 FAREWELL MEETING 

Are you willing, and do you say, Write thy law, 

Saviour, upon my heart ? Will you submit, 
and put away your sins, and let Christ reign 
over you ? Some of you are now doing so, and 
your prayer is. Lord, if thou have mercy, how 
gladly will I keep thy commands ! If so poor a 
worm as I can find pardon, how will my sad 
heart rejoice! If thus struggHng to be saved 
from sin, go touch that atoning blood ; go direct 
to that altar ; do not rest ; continue until God 
shall manifest himself to you. You need not 
say, " All that the Lord hath spoken we will 
do," one, two, or three times, as this only would 
not be enough. You must have the sprinkled 
blood, and must not rest until you have a mani- 
festation. Some will tell you your good desires 
and religious inclinations will suffice, and you 
need not be over anxious about your salvation. 

1 tell you, be anxious, and let your prayer be. 
Nothing can satisfy me and nothing content me 
until the Lord lift up the light of his countenance 
upon me, and grant me salvation. Come this 
moment. Now the blood of sprinkling pleads 
Christ's righteousness, and yoii may, by touch- 
ing his scepter, live forever. The time will 



AT GREENE-STREET. 1*77 

come when all shall hear his voice, and shall 
come forth ; they that have done good, to the 
resurrection of life, and they that have done e\dl, 
to the resurrection of damnation. Even all of 
us shall come who have washed our robes and 
made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 
Then we shall see God. 'No word conveys such 
an infinity of delight and rapture as this — ive 
shall see God, Be that my lot. Let this sight 
which has been hidden for years, and vailed hke 
a blind man going through a glory-beaming, 
beautiful scenery, open upon the glory that is to 
be revealed when you and I shall be washed in 
the blood of the Lamb. A little longer, and we 
shall enter that world where there will be no 
more danger of our going out of the light than 
of a blind man going out of the reach of the 
sun's beam. One by one we shall pass away, 
and our places be supplied by others, but our 
friends who have gone before will travel down 
on sun-beams to meet us and escort us home. 
They will lend you their wings, and you will 
rise ; the earthly tabernacle shall fall off, and 
you shall see, hear, and sing by turns as 
you feel the gushing joy, ecstasy, and love 



178 FAREWELL MEETING 

of heaven. May you be there. May I be 
there. 



At the conclusion of the sermon, Rev. Dr. 
Osbon called Bishop Janes to the chair, and 
remarked that Dr. Durbin had been selected to 
address some farewell words to Mr. Arthur on that 
occasion. 

Dr. Durbin then rose, and addressing the 
president, remarked, that in a public life of more 
than thirty-seven years, it had not fallen to his 
lot to perform a duty so pleasant and yet so pain- 
ful. Called upon to represent the Churches in 
close communion, as the circumstances at that 
time seemed to require, some preparation was ne- 
cessary, and that preparation he had made in some 
degree ; but the occasion was one which forbade 
all studied effort, as it was the mingling of fra- 
ternal emotions of those who were about to 
separate, and the heart must be allowed, under 
such circumstances, to dictate its own farewell 
expressions. 

To-morrow evening, at this time, our brother 
will be out upon the dangerous deep. My 
thoughts are not restricted from the past, they 



AT GREENE-STREET. l79 

ought not to be from the future. Our brother's 
mission has ceased, and, apart from any particu- 
lar claims it has upon our sympathies and bene- 
factions, it must be obvious to all that its success 
thus far has been a personal matter. The name 
of our brother has for years been famihar to us ; 
and that name heralded his approach to our 
shores. Many years ago our brother cacne from 
India, whither he had gone as a missionary ; and 
a brother who sits on my right will soon depart 
for that same country, to bear the Gospel to the 
destitute of that land. But our brother came 
among us on another mission. His labors to pro- 
mote an enlarged and systematic benevolence will 
be felt throughout the length and breadth of the 
land. That little volume which he wrote, and 
which is mentioned in every family of England, 
is known and read extensively among us here ; 
I mean " The Successful Merchant." ' Who has 
not heard of that book ? With these impressions 
preceding him, our brother came to our shores. 
Need I tell you how he was received among us ? 
He was welcomed not only as a brother, but as 
the representative of the Church, and of a great 
and abiding interest. Most cordially was he 



180 FAREWELL MEETING 

greeted, not only by the bishops of the Church, 
but by whole bodies of ministers who sohcited 
his visits. But there was another feature con- 
nected with his reception. He visited the West, 
and attended several of the conferences. I found 
him there ; but it was upon a sick bed, nearer the 
grave than he thought, as the critical nature of 
his condition was kept from his knowledge. 
His physicians told me that his case was alarm- 
ing. How many friends sympathized with him 
in that hour ! how many hearts were interested ! 
and how many prayers were offered up for his 
recovery, and that his life might be spared to his 
family and the Church. It was spared ! Do I 
any violence to reason or religion by saying that 
he was raised up in answer to prayer ? I meet 
him here to-night just on the eve of his departure, 
gathering up his mantle to be gone ; and I meet 
him, impressed with the fact that, in all probabil- 
ity, nay, with almost absolute certainty — such 
are the chances and changes of this uncertain 
life — that I shall see him no more — no more, un- 
til — until what ? When ? No more until, sprin- 
kled with the blood of the new and everlasting 
covenant, he shall have ceased preaching the 



AT GREENE-STREET. 181 

Gospel, disconnected witli money considerations, 
but as you have heard it to-night ; and God shall 
say. Come up, not, like Moses, from the foot of 
the burning mountain, but from, the dark cold 
grave, on the resurrection morning. I do not un- 
dervalue his mission on account of its connection 
with money, because it is associated with grand 
results that will tell upon the religious destiny of 
his country in all time to come. There will 
come a time when the fiaiits of his mission will 
be more precious, as exhibited in the conversion 
of souls ; both are precious, but the latter will 
be far more so. I believe there will be fruits of 
his ministry in America that will live in heaven. 
While he will bear back the fruits of his mission 
in a pecuniary point of view, he may bear back 
the well-founded and reasonable expectation that 
God will give him souls. 

The thought has sensibly impressed my mind 
that our brother will be exposed to dangers in 
crossing a wintry ocean. Our shores have re- 
cently been strewed with wrecks ; but I have not 
the slightest waver in my mind that God will 
keep our brother on the perilous ocean, and land 
him safe upon the shores of his fatherland. If 



182 FAREWELL MEETING 

you ask me why ? I will tell you. God has a 
work for him to do, and the prayers of the 
Church will go up unceasingly in his behalf. 

I have not expressed the sympathy to you, 
my brother, which I have been charged to pre- 
sent, because there is a sympathy which cannot 
be uttered, known only to the heart that feels it. 
You will bear that sympathy with you. It will 
accompany you to your home. You will never 
forget this country ; the communions and fellow- 
ships you have enjoyed among God's people will 
chng forever to your memory. Nor will we ever 
forget you, or the lessons of heavenly wisdom 
which have fallen from your lips; they are gar- 
nered up in our hearts among the precious things 
of religion, and will live there forever. We will 
speak of you in our families, and at the altar of 
prayer. To-morrow night, how many of us will 
make mention in our prayers of our brother gone 
home ! In behalf of the ministers and Churches 
I have the honor of representing, I say to you in 
Christian love, Farewell, till we meet again in the 
general assembly and Church of the first-born, 
whose names are written in heaven. 



AT GREENE-STREET. 183 

To this address Mr. Arthur replied : Mr. Pres- 
ident, the cordial expressions of kindness mani- 
fested by this large assembly in my behalf, be as- 
sured, dear sir, are grateful to my feelings ; and 
had I not witnessed, during my entire stay in your 
midst, the most unmistakable evidences of your 
Christian courtesy and regard, what I witness on 
this occasion would convince me of the respect 
and affection which th^ people of New- York bear 
toward me. Dr. Durbin has truly said, I cannot 
forget this people. Nor can I, sir, ever forget his 
kind address. I came into your midst not as a 
traveler merely to see your great country, and 
become acquainted with your people and their in- 
stitutions, but I came seeking your money, and 
to ask for your sympathy and aid in behalf of 
poor priest-smitten Ireland ; and everywhere in 
my journeys throughout the land, I received a 
most hearty welcome. I have received your 
sympathy and your prayers, and you have 
poured out your benefactions upon the heads 
and hearts of many. When I return to my 
native land, I will tell my friends whom to love 
and to bless. 

We came here and opened our mission in Mul- 



184 FAREWELL MEETING 

berry-street, and the prompt and generous liber- 
ality of the friends thrilled our hearts. May God 
bless that spot forever ! may every one who met 
us there in the true spirit of Christian philanthro- 
py, ever enjoy the richer blessings of God's grace 
for what they communicated to others ! We 
went round from thence visiting the Churches, and 
were everywhere received in the same spirit, until 
the handsome sum received at Mulberry-street, 
was increased to upward of seventeen thousand 
dollars. From this city we went to Boston, where 
we met the same spirit. The calm and noble Bos- 
tonians gave us five thousand dollars. From 
thence we went to Philadelphia, and found large 
congregations composed of different denomina- 
tions, and were met with the same open-hearted 
benevolence. Since then a public meeting has 
been 'held in that city, and the sum already col- 
lected will be increased to ten thousand dollars. 
Then we went to Washington and Baltimore, 
where the same kind of generous, large-hearted 
spirits came up to our help, and contributed cheer- 
fully their thousands to our cause. The money 
we have received would of itself prove a substan- 
tial token of your esteem and regard for us and 



AT GREENE-STREET. 185 

our cause, but the noble spirit which was mani- 
fested apart from the blessings which wMl accrue 
to Ireland, doubly enhances that memorial. The 
college which your benevolence will erect for the 
education of our youth, the missionaries which 
you will send out through the length and breadth 
of the land, and the other agencies it will set in 
motion for good, will constitute a permanent fund 
that will be doing good when you and I are dead 
and gone. Every brother there will feel himself 
a stronger man wdth your sympathy at his back. 
The great multitude that say to our brethren, 
God speed you ! will make them stronger to labor ; 
and I desire, in behalf of the Irish ministers and 
the people, and the work in which they are en- 
gaged, to pour upon the head of every one who 
has in any degree contributed to promote the 
cause of education and religion in Ireland, a bless- 
ing. May God bless you ! Give us your prayers, 
and He in whose hands are the spirits of all flesh 
will make us a blessing to you. Greatly wull 
you share in the advantages resulting from the 
conversion of Ireland to God. You have already 
shared in some of her first-fruits. John Summer- 
field was born in Ireland. It was there" he wa.s 



186 FAREWELL MEETING 

led to prayer-meeting and to the class-room, 
where afnong the Methodists he was converted 
to God, and made a burning and a shining light 
in both hemispheres. How many dollars is a 
Summerfield worth ? and how many a Charles 
Elliott, and others ? God will reward you for all 
that you have done and yet may do for his cause. 
The work in Ireland will tell upon your own 
Church and country. When our Lord ascended 
up on high, he gave gifts to men in the form of 
apostles, teachers, evangehsts ; and he will give 
you some new pastors and evangelists from Ire- 
land. Again, I thank you in behalf of our 
Church and cause in Ireland. My excellent 
brother Scott is yet with you, and will remain, 
assisted by brother Butler, to prosecute the work. 
Dr. Durbin has said, it is not finished, but the in- 
fluence of your liberality will be felt all over the 
Union, and will prepare the way for their labors. 
Let me express my gratitude to God and grati- 
tude to individuals for the stand taken by my 
fellow-countrymen in this cause. Those of our 
kith and kin nobly opened their hearts and hands 
to our help. May God bless them and prosper 
them more and more ! I can never forget the hos- 



AT GREENE-STREET. 187 

pitality of brother Osbon, who has endeared me 
to him by his many acts of kindness. If I think 
of the bishops, or of the conferences where they 
presided, it is with the deepest emotions, as all 
treated my mission with kindness and even en- 
thusiasm ; and then the many families in New- 
York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Balti- 
more, and elsewhere — my heart overflows with 
gratitude. How many fiiends have I made, and 
how many friendships formed, which I trust will 
be renewed on the blissful shore ! Xo, sir, I 
never can forget America. Having your prayers 
and God's blessing, I shall be safe in my journey, 
for God will be with me. But I go with one 
pang at my heart : I do not know that God has 
converted one soul through my instrumentality 
since I have been among you. And now, brethren, 
farewell ! May God bless you and bless your coun- 
try. I shall never forget you. I came among you a 
stranger, and ye took me in : I was sick, and. ye 
visited me ; and had my wife been on one hand 
and my mother on the other, more sympathy, and 
kindness, and attention could not have been 
shown. The people of America are dear to me, 
for the obliofations thev have laid me under, and 



188 FAREWELL MEETING. 

the very soil is dear to me, for in that soil lies 
my mother. Farewell ! 

Bishop Janes then read the parting hymn, 
commencing, 

" Blest be the tie that binds 
Our hearts in Christian love." 

After which, the benediction was pronounced 
by Dr. Bangs, and the numerous friends of Mr. 
Arthur pressed around him to receive his bless- 
ing and utter the last parting word. 



THE END. 



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Memoir of Richard Williams. 

Memoir of Richaed Williams, Surgeon : Catechist to 
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By James Hamilton, D. D. 

16mo., pp. 270. Muslin $0 30 

This is really one of the most profoundly interesting and sug- 
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and ten. He has illustrated, in a remarkable manner, the 
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Greek and Eastern Churches, 

The Greek and Eastern Churches: their History, 
Faith and Worship. 

18mo., pp. 220. Muslin SO 24 

Contents. Origin of the Greek Church — Its Progress and 
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— Worthies of the Greek Church — Heretics and Sectaries 
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Greek Church. 

A. very timely book, giving, in a brief but clear form, an ac- 
count of the history, faith, and worship of the Greek and 
Russian Churches. It will be seen from this book how little 
would be gained to Christianity by the triumph of Czar 
Nicholas in the war he is now so unrighteously waging. 

Australia, 

Australia : its Scenery, Natural History, and Resources : 
with a Glance at its Gold Fields. 

18mo., pp. 207. Price $0 24 

This little volume gives a condensed view of the geography, 
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WORKS PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PHTLLIPS, 

200 Mulberry-street, Xew-York. 

Successful Men. 

Successful ]\Iex of Modeen Toies. From the London 
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18mo., pp. 208. Muslin $0 24 

CoxTExrs. A few "Words about Success in general — Success- 
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Social Elevation. 

The work is calculated to do good as a stimulant to exertion 
in the right direction, and with right ends in view. "We 
trust it Vyill meet with general favour. — Christian Intelli- 
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The Christian Labourer, 

The Chpjstian Laboueee — tlie Christian Hero : Memoirs 
of a Useful Man. 

ISmo., pp. 200. Muslin $0 20 

A record of the life and Christian labours of Eoger Miller, 
the founder of Ragged Schools, whose career, though begin- 
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the history of the modern Church records. In the London 
City Mission he found a field, in the full sense of the word, 
requiring missionary zeal and self-denial to a very large 
extent. The history of his personal as well as his more 
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Review. 

Switzerland. 

S"Vn:TZEELAXD ; HiSTOEICAL AND DeSCETPTIVE. 

18mo., pp. 214. Muslin SO 24 

Part I. Historical: The Dim Distance — Seeds of Nationality 
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Part 11. Descriptive : Nature — Art — Society. 

The Seven Wonders of the World. 

The Seven Woxdees of the Woeld and theie As- 
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12mo. Price $0 75 



WORKS PUBLISHED BY CAEXTON & PHILLIPS, 

200 Mulberry-street, Xew-York. 

The PMlosojphy of Faith. 

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of Active Life— Faith of the Ignorant — Faith of the Young 
— Faith in Prosperity — Faith in Adversity- -Faith in Life and 
in Death. 

This book belongs to a class that has been rare of late years. 
It is a calm, thoughtful, yet uncontrover^sial survey of a great 
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Heroines of History. 

The Heeoixes of Histoey. By Mrs. Octayius Feziee 
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12mo • ■ SO 85 

Jewish Eea: Jael, or Jahel — Judith — Salamona — Mariamne. 
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ISino., pp. 109. Muslin $0 30 

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this harmony he has endeavoured to exhibit. — Pr^ace. 



WORKS PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PHILLIPS, 

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Biographical Sketches. 

Sketches of Emdjent Methodist Ministers. With 
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interest to every minister of the gospel, and to every Chris- 
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